Clark, Frederick Le Gros

Fredrick Le Gros Clark was the grandson of a surgeon of the same name (1811-1892) and the brother of Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, Professor of Anatomy at Oxford and London Universities. His right hand and right eye were destroyed in an accident at the end of the First World War, and his left eye so badly damaged that he gradually became completely blind.

His writing career commenced with children's books and some articles on his experiences of coping with blindness, but by 1930 had found his vocation as an integrator of knowledge and experience on problems connected with welfare and nutrition. He instigated the 'Committee against Malnutrition', drawing attention to the extent of malnutrition in Great Britain. He became secretary of the Children's Nutrition Council and edited the Nutrition Bulletin of the National Council for Health Education. He studied school feeding and was, briefly, a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, contributing to the historical chapter in the FAO's School feeding: its contribution to child nutrition by Marjorie L Scott, 1953 (see also D.12 in this list). Aided by grants from the Nuffield Foundation, he undertook a prolonged study of the part played by tradition and preconceptions, rather than incapacity, in fixing the age of retirement.

Clark took an Oxford MA in 1944 and was given an honorary DSc by Bristol University in 1972.