Biography

b.1920. Nottinghamshire, England; married, two children, two grandchildren. Died October 2006

Last full-time post. (1975-1981). Deputy Director & Senior Lecturer, Sir David Owen Population Centre. Cardiff University.

Work since then. Visiting lecturer @ the Cardiff Centre, ditto @ Exeter University Population Institute, 1982-85. Connection with the Cardiff Centre to be maintained after its move to Keele University in 2001. Consultant, writer and lecturer on population and social problems. Advisory Ed. Population & Environment. N.Y. (1987- ) Memb. Scientific Advisory Board, Population Review, Bangkok, 2003 --

Earlier career.  Started work in 1934, aged 14, as tea-boy/apprentice in mechanical engineering.  RAF pilot at home and overseas, 1941-46.  Trained as aeronautical draughtsman-designer post-war, then switched to civil-engineering.  Later left to spend a year exploring Europe on foot.  Returned to odd jobs in farming and the civil-service whilst studying philosophy and psychology in WEA evening classes.  Won Mature State Scholarship; graduated 1955 in philosophy and politics from then new Keele University.

Sociological researcher with National Coal Board, 1955-59.  Joined Brunel College of Technology as Nuffield Research Associate; appointed Lecturer in Social Institutions, 1961, assimilated into new School of Social Sciences on Brunel's elevation to university status.  Moved to the Cardiff Centre, December 1974, to concentrate on population studies.  Left full-time post,1981, to work independently in the same field.

Other activities.  Conservation Society; founder-member  1966; Hon. Education Officer until 1969. National Council member and local branch Chairman, 1971-75; Working Party on Population, member since 1983. Liberal Party, non-party member of the Environment, Optimum Population, & Economic Growth panels, 1971-75. Independent Commission on Transport; member, 1973-74, & joint author/editor of Report, Changing Directions (1974).  Public lectures; extensive series since 1964 in many parts of Britain on population, development, and environmental issues.  Broadcasting; since 1948 on the Continent and at home, many talks, interviews, etc, on various topics, mainly on population and environment.  Ditto with documentary films; appeared in several.  Wrote, directed, & edited the documentary film The Blackhill Campaign (released in 1965), on the closing of a mine in Northumberland. Copies now in National Film Archive & the Beamish Industrial Museum near Newcastle upon Tyne.

Internat. Union for the Conservation of Nature; member Task-Force on Population & Resources, (1982-85).  Helped draft the Supplement to the World Conservation Strategy.  Occasional consultant to IPPF, IUCN, OXFAM, Population Concern, British Petroleum, & other bodies.  Attended many international conferences, and been a visiting fellow at the Australian National University @ Canberra. Gave seminars there and at various other universities and institutions in the UK and in Bucharest, Salzburg, Bangkok, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

Optimum Population Trust (UK). Helped Founder, David Willey, to get it going, elected Patron, 1994; Rationalist Press Association, elected hon. Associate, Jan. 1995, EPOC (The European Pherology Organisations Confederation. ‘Pherology’ being the science of carrying capacity), elected hon. Adviser in1997; CAT (Centre for Alternative Technology) elected hon Life Member, 2000.

Between 1989 and the end of 2000, my main activity was writing, publishing, and dealing with problems arising from, my opus on human population competition by invitation from -- and on funds supplied by -- an American foundation. The very controversial topic may have something to do with the fact that the ms was rejected by 101 publishers before it found a home with the Edwin Mellen Academic Press at Lewiston, New York, from whom the rights have subsequently been reclaimed by the author for republication through different channels.

Malthus. Delivered the Malthus Bicentenary Commemoration Lecture, at Cardiff University, of the first publication of his classic Essay On Population ...  and later developed this into a university monograph, available from Population Policy Press.

Currently working on a book on the survival of social systems and various articles on aspects of the population problem. Also very active in the Optimum Population Trust and on a number of other fronts. This included work with a new UNED group endeavouring to ensure that human population dynamics played a due role in the deliberations at the Johannesburg Earth Summit in 2002. This attempt failed but efforts continue in a number of other directions, including attempts to influence the  UK 'All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population ...'

Also set up the Population Policy Press, 2002, a small non-profit enterprise, in an attempt to publish more realistic and truthful material on population and related problems, ie, getting round the 'Hardinian Taboo'.