Frank Lidgett McDougall

He was the son of John McDougall, a Wesleyan Methodist, and his second wife Ellen Lidgett (1858–1952). She was a first cousin of Methodist leader John Scott Lidgett, and wrote devotional works. He was born in Greenwich, his father's third son, and was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School. He was then a student at Darmstadt University of Technology. McDougall's mother Ellen was the daughter of George Lidgett, meaning that he had relations in South Africa: Sidney Bunting and his uncle Jack Lidgett. Sidney and Jack planned to farm wattle at Lidgetton in Natal, on a family property, a scheme put on foot in 1906–7. After leaving university, McDougall spent two years there on the farm. He spoke in later life of having started "with an axe, a mattock, and an occasional charge of dynamite, to clear the bush". In 1915 he volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force, serving in the 27th Battalion as a second lieutenant and the I ANZAC Cyclist Battalion. ==The Australian Dried Fruit Association==

After the war, McDougall became heavily involved in the Australian Dried Fruit Association (ADFA), rising to be chairman of the Australian Dried Fruit Board in the 1930s. The ADFA had been created from local groups in 1907 by W. B. Chaffey. In 1922 Chaffey, McDougall and Charles Edward Devenish Meares travelled to London, to promote Australian dried fruit in the British market. From the ADFA's point of view, world prices were dropping, in the early 1920s, just when the production acreage was increasing strongly. Its price-fixing function at home was removed in 1926, for a decade. ==Under Stanley Bruce==

Stanley Bruce became Australia's Prime Minister in 1923, and recruited McDougall for a role at Australia House in London. After a period in the Prime Minister's Department in 1924, McDougall returned to London in 1925, with part of his time devoted to the Dried Fruits Control Board. In 1927 McDougall suggested that Bruce invite John Boyd Orr of the Rowett Institute to Australia, to advise on animal nutrition. Boyd Orr and David Rivett were important contacts, connected with another aspect of his London work, liaison with CSIR. ==League of Nations work==

In 1929, Stanley Bruce was replaced as Australia's Prime Minister by James Scullin, and McDougall felt his position in London was insecure under the Labor Party administration. In fact he remained at Australia House until 1946. He supported Scullin for the 1930 Imperial Conference, and weathered a salary cut by writing, in particular for Lord Beaverbrook. In the field of international nutrition, he did so effectively, beginning with a memorandum of January 1935, "The Agriculture and the Health Problems". With Bruce providing introductions, he met social figures and those in power. The speech also nodded to contemporary nutritional thinking by stating "calories are not enough". Bruce and McDougall then promoted the slogan "marry health and agriculture"; the implication that agricultural policy might have global impact on public health issues was innovative, and has been called "a major landmark in the history of nutrition". Boyd Orr, too, had contributed to the formulation. Behind the speech was a notable working paper. While the political authority of the League dropped away in the 1930s, it supported technical research on global problems. The Burnet–Aykroyd report of 1935, authored by Étienne Burnet and Wallace Rundell Aykroyd, moved nutrition as a public policy issue into the domain of public health. The Health Organization of the League of Nations was then asked in 1936 to set up a nutrition section. McDougall worked with others on the Nutrition – Final Report of the Mixed Committee of 1937 that resulted. Continuing in the same direction, McDougall in 1938 chaired a subcommittee of the League's Economic and Financial Organization, on standard of living (which the League characterised as "human well-being"). It was a further "mixed committee", with ILO representation, on which McDougall had an ally in Noel Hall: the topic was cross-cultural and contentious. McDougall, Neal and Boyd Orr were agreed in an approach to alleviating the economic austerity of the times. Bruce produced the "Bruce Report" on standard of living. The outbreak of World War II made all these efforts moot by 1940. ==The Food and Agriculture Organization==

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations grew out of the 1943 Hot Springs Conference on agriculture at Hot Springs, Virginia, called by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a "World Food Conference". The idea has been attributed to John Gilbert Winant; also, on the account given by Gove Hambidge, to the intervention of the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. Paul H. Appleby may have been involved. On the agenda of the US and United Kingdom was an international wheat agreement. In autumn 1942, McDougall had work on the wheat question that took him to Washington DC, sent by Bruce, who in a letter to Stafford Cripps dated 9 September explained that McDougall also bore a paper, "Progress in the War of Ideas". He dined at the White House, meeting the First Lady and Harry Hopkins. McDougall attended the Hot Springs Conference, at which the basis of the FAO, set up in 1946, was laid out. He then pursued his agenda largely through the FAO, acting as its liaison with the United Nations. He worked with both Boyd Orr, the first FAO Director, and Dag Hammarskjöld of the UN. ==Death==

McDougall died on 15 February 1958 in Rome, of peritonitis. ==Works==

• Sheltered Markets (1925), advocacy for imperial tariff preference. • Food and Welfare (1939) • Food and Population (1952) • Letters from a "Secret Service Agent", F. L. McDougall to S. M. Bruce. 1924-1929 (1986), edited by W. J. Hudson and Wendy Way. ==Family==

In 1915 McDougall married Madeline Joyce Cutlack, sister of Frederic Cutlack. He was survived by a son John and daughter Elisabeth. ==McDougall Memorial Lectures==

The McDougall Memorial Lectures were founded in 1958, "to commemorate the late F. L. McDougall who played a leading role in the foundation of FAO and initiation of its activities." They are biennial, and are delivered at the opening of the FAO conference. • 1959 Arnold J. Toynbee • 1961 John D. Rockefeller III • 1963 Julius Nyerere • 1971 Norman Borlaug • 1973 Gunnar Myrdal • 1977 Andrew Young • 1981 Indira Gandhi ==Notes==