On leaving the university, he took a position as a ship's surgeon on a ship trading between Scotland and West Africa, choosing this job because it offered the possibility of paying off his bank overdraft faster than any other. He resigned after four months, when he had repaid the debt. He then tried general practice, working as a
locum in the practice of his family doctor in
Saltcoats, and was offered a partnership there. Realising that a career in medicine was not for him, he instead accepted the offer of a two-year Carnegie research scholarship, to work in
E. P. Cathcart's laboratory. The work he began there covered
malnutrition,
protein and
creatine metabolism, the effect of water intake on
nitrogenous metabolism in humans, and the energy expenditure of military recruits in training.
The beginnings of the Rowett Research Institute On 1 April 1914, Boyd Orr took charge of a new research institute in
Aberdeen, a project of a joint committee for research into animal nutrition of the
North of Scotland College of Agriculture and the
University of Aberdeen. He had been offered the post on the recommendation of E. P. Cathcart, who had originally been offered the job, but had turned it down in favour of a chair in
physiology in
London. The joint committee had allocated a budget of £5,000 for capital expenditure and £1,500 for annual running costs. Boyd Orr recognised immediately that these sums were inadequate. Using his experience in his father's business of drawing up plans and estimating costs, he submitted a budget of £50,000 for capital expenditure and £5,000 for annual running costs. Meanwhile, with the £5,000 he had already been allocated he specified a building, not of wood as had been envisaged by the committee, but of granite and designed so that it could serve as a wing of his proposed £50,000 Institute. He accepted the lowest tender of £5,030, and told the contractors to begin work immediately. The committee were not pleased, but had to accept the
fait accompli. When war broke out the contractors were told to finish the walls and roof, but to do no more for the time being.
War service (1914–1918) On the outbreak of the
First World War he was given leave to join the
British Army, and asked his former colleague E. P. Cathcart to help him obtain a medical commission in an infantry unit overseas. Cathcart thought he would be more useful at home, and his first commission was in a special civilian section of the
RAMC dealing with sanitation. Several divisions of non-conscripted recruits were in training in emergency camps at home, some of them in poor sanitary conditions. Boyd Orr was able to push through schemes for improvement in hygiene, preventing much sickness. After 18 months he was posted as
Medical Officer to an infantry unit, the
1st battalion Sherwood Foresters. He spent much of his time in shell holes, patching up the many wounded. His courage under fire and devotion to duty were recognised by the award of a
Military Cross after the
Battle of the Somme, and of the
Distinguished Service Order after
Passchendaele. He also made arrangements for the battalion's diet to be supplemented by vegetables collected from local deserted gardens and fields. As a result, unlike other units, he did not need to send any of the men in his medical charge to hospital. He also prevented his men getting
trench foot by personally ensuring they were fitted with boots a size larger than usual. He was appointed a Captain in the RAMC with effect from 5 May 1918, having previously been a temporary Captain. Worried that he was losing touch with medical and nutritional advances, he asked to be transferred to the
navy, where he thought he would have more time available for reading and research. The army was reluctant to let him go, but agreed, since he was still a civilian surgeon. He spent a busy three months in the naval hospital at
Chatham, studying hard while practicing medicine in the wards, before being posted to
HMS Furious. On board ship his medical duties were light, enabling him to do a great deal of reading. He was later recalled to work studying food requirements of the army.
Post-war expansion of the Rowett Research Institute When Boyd Orr returned to Aberdeen in early 1919, his plan for a larger Institute had still not been accepted. Indeed, even his plans for the annual maintenance grant had to be approved by the Professor of Agriculture in
Cambridge,
Thomas Barlow Wood. Despite gaining the latter's support, his expansion plans were at first rebuffed, although he succeeded in having the annual grant increased to £4,000. In 1920 he was introduced to
John Quiller Rowett, a businessman who seemed to have qualms of conscience over the large profits he had made during the war. Shortly afterwards, the government agreed to finance half the cost of Boyd Orr's plan, provided he could raise the other half elsewhere. Rowett agreed to provide £10,000 for the first year, £10,000 for the second year, and gave an additional £2,000 for the purchase of a farm, provided that, "if any work done at the Institute on animal nutrition was found to have a bearing on human nutrition, the Institute would be allowed to follow up this work", a condition the
Treasury was willing to accept. By September 1922 the buildings were nearly completed, and the renamed
Rowett Research Institute was opened shortly thereafter by
Queen Mary. Boyd Orr proved to be an effective fund-raiser from both government and private sources, expanding the experimental farm to around , building a well-endowed library, and expanding the buildings. He also built a centre for accommodating students and scientists attracted by the institute's growing reputation, a reputation enhanced by Boyd Orr's many publications. His research output suffered from the time and energy he had to devote to fund-raising, and in later life he said, "I still look with bitter resentment at having to spend half my time in the humiliating job of hunting for money for the Institute." Through the 1920s, his own research was devoted mainly to animal nutrition, his focus changed to human nutrition both as a researcher and an active lobbyist and propagandist for improving people's diets.
Isabella Leitch had been employed as a temporary librarian but she was soon his assistant where she spread "the gospel according to Sir John". In 1927, Boyd Orr proved the value of milk being supplied to school children, which led to free school milk provision in the UK. His 1936 report "Food, Health and Income" showed that at least one third of the UK population were so poor that they could not afford to buy sufficient food to provide a healthy diet and revealed that there was a link between low-income, malnutrition and under-achievement in schools. He was appointed a member of the short-lived Livestock Commission under the
Livestock Industry Act 1937 in 1937. From 1929 to 1944, Boyd Orr was Consultant Director to the Imperial Bureau of Animal Nutrition, later the Commonwealth Bureau of Nutrition (part of the
Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux), which was based at the Rowett Research Institute. During the Second World War he was a member of Churchill's Scientific Committee on Food Policy and helped to formulate food rationing Boyd Orr was knighted in the
1935 New Year Honours for services to agriculture. == International and political work ==