Alexander King (chemist)

Alexander King CMG CBE (26 January 1909 – 28 February 2007)

was a British chemist and pioneer of the sustainable development
movement who co-founded the Club of Rome in 1968 with the
Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei.[1] The Club was one of the first
institutions to voice concerns about the impact on the environment
of unprecedented economic growth in the 20th century. "Peccei
and King were lonely prophets at a time of overwhelming
optimism," who did much to push environmental issues on to the
political agenda.[2] At the time of the Club's founding, King was
Director-General for Scientific Affairs at the Paris-based
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD).[3][4]

Life and career

Born in Glasgow, King attended Highgate School and later studied King in 1987
chemistry at Imperial College, where he edited the college's
literary magazine and served as president of its literary and
debating society. From 1929 to 1931, he pursued postgraduate research on a fellowship at the University
of Munich. On his return to London, he became a lecturer and then senior lecturer in physical chemistry
at Imperial. In 1938, he was awarded the Edward Harrison Memorial Prize by the Royal Society of
Chemistry.[5]

With the outbreak of WWII, Sir Henry Tizard invited King to join the Ministry of Production as Deputy
Scientific Adviser. It was during this period that a letter from the Geigy Company in Switzerland to its
Manchester branch office, detailing the composition of a new "mothballing agent"
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, was intercepted by the censor.[6] King recognised the importance of the
chemical agent and its potential use as an insecticide, allegedly coining the acronym DDT.[7] In 1943,
King travelled to the United States, becoming Head of the UK Scientific Mission and Scientific Attaché
at the British Embassy in Washington. Following the war, King became Secretary of the Advisory
Council on Scientific Policy and personal adviser to the Lord President of the Council, Herbert Morrison.
King was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1948 Birthday
Honours.[8] He later became Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Scientific and Industrial
Research.

In 1957, King joined the European Productivity Agency (EPA) as Director in Paris, subsequently
becoming Director-General for Scientific Affairs at the OECD[9] At the OECD, "he initiated the Science
Policy Surveys, which took a critical look at the state of science and technology in the OECD countries.
Among other things, his initiatives encouraged new forms of education."[10] He retired from the OECD in
1974, taking up the chairmanship of the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies
(IFIAS), an organisation based in Stockholm.[11]

The Club of Rome

King has been described as "a cool catalyst with the golden knack of transforming ideas into action."[12]
It was while working at the OECD that King co-founded the influential think tank the Club of Rome. In
1966, he came across the transcript of a speech given by Aurelio Peccei and the two met to discuss
common interests. With the support of the Agnelli Foundation, they invited 30 European scientists,
economists and industrialists to Rome to discuss global issues. While the initial 1968 meeting at
Accademia dei Lincei (Palazzo Corsini) was a failure, it led to the formation of a network of individuals
with shared concerns about the environmental consequences of untrammelled global development.[13]
The first formal meeting of the Club of Rome took place in Bern in 1970.[14]

The 1972 best-selling report The Limits to Growth, which was commissioned by the Club of Rome and
funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, was the first attempt to simulate the consequences of development
on the earth's limited resources.[15] The book "challenged the economic orthodoxy that the earth would
always provide the resources for human prosperity, and became the biggest-selling environmental book in
history."[16] In questioning prevalent assumptions about the inevitability and benefits of economic
growth, the Club of Rome provoked sometimes fierce controversy and accusations of elitism. Its
warnings about the dangers of anthropogenic environmental change were disputed in ways that anticipate
contemporary opposition to scientific assessments of global climate change.[17] The Club of Rome's
concerns with overpopulation were viewed by some as neo-Malthusian.[18] However, the Club of Rome's
mission to bring awareness to the pressures of development on the environment – and in particular the
publication of The Limits to Growth – according to King's obituary, "touched a raw nerve in the body
politic. Its warnings resonated with the fears of others that there was an emerging environmental crisis.
The United Nations Environment Programme was established a few months after [the book] appeared.
The word 'environment' does not even appear in the 1945 UN Charter, and King helped expand the UN's
role into environmental protection."[19]

After Peccei's death, King served as the Club's President from 1984 to 1990. He was the recipient of
many honours: in 1975 he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) and
in 1987 he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to raising awareness of "the positive and
negative impact of technological progress on society."[20]

Works
King's autobiography, Let the Cat Turn Round: One Man's Traverse of the Twentieth Century, was
published in 2006 and acclaimed by the scientist, and Limits to Growth co-author Dennis Meadows, as "a
chronicle of a century": "Few science policy advisors were better situated than Alex King to observe the
way technology co-evolved with politics and economics in the 1900s. This book summarizes his
contributions and offers his insights. Both are of major importance."[21] Other books by King include The
State of the Planet (Pergamon, 1980) and, with Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution
(Pantheon, 1991).
King wrote a monograph, Science, Technology and the Quality of Life (1972) and co-authored An Eye to
the Future (1975) for the London-based Institute for Cultural Research, which was founded and directed
by the writer and thinker, Idries Shah, a fellow member of the Club of Rome.[22][23][24]

Personal life
The King family originated from Dunblane and Doune in Scotland. Alexander King's father, James
Mitchell King, worked for the Nobel Explosives Company and eventually became a director of Imperial
Chemical Industries (ICI). On his mother's side, King was a descendant of the industrialist and
philanthropist David Dale (1773–1806), the founder of the New Lanark Mills and father-in-law of the
utopian socialist Robert Owen (1771–1858).[25] In 1933, King married Sarah Maskell Thompson whom
he had met in Munich, a niece of the Liberal politician Walter Runciman, Viscount Runciman of Doxford,
and granddaughter of the Liberal MP and industrialist James Cochran Stevenson. King's daughter,
Catherine Peckham, is a well-known doctor, who became the first Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology
in the UK.

References
1. "History of the Club of Rome" (https://www.clubofrome.org/about-us/history/). Club of Rome.
Retrieved 3 April 2019.
2. Suter, Keith (1999). "The Club of Rome: The Global Conscience". Contemporary Review.
275: 1–5.
3. Schmelzer, Matthias (2017). " "Born in the Corridors of the OECD": The Forgotten Origins of
the Club of Rome, Transnational Networks, and the 1970s in Global History' ". Journal of
Global History. 12: 26–48. doi:10.1017/S1740022816000322 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS1
740022816000322). S2CID 164497528 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:16449752
8).
4. "BBC Radio 4 - Last Word" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/lastword_30mar2007.shtml).
BBC Radio 4. 30 March 2007. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20080628121341/htt
p://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/lastword_30mar2007.shtml) from the original on 28 June
2008. Retrieved 5 September 2020.
5. "Harrison Memorial Prize" (https://www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Awards/Archive/Harri
sonMemorial/). Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
6. Brabyn, Howard (24 August 1972). "Cool Catalyst". New Scientist: 390.
7. Suter, Keith (2 May 2007). "Alexander King: Obituary". The Guardian.
8. "Birthday Honours". The London Gazette. No. 38311. 10 June 1948.
9. .King, Alexander (2006). Let the Cat Turn Round: One Man's Traverse Through the
Twentieth Century. London: CPTM. pp. 220–249.
10. "Erasmus Prize Former Laureates" (http://www.erasmusprijs.org/Prijswinnaars?lang=en&mo
de=detail&itemid=D591473F-B606-AF55-B2BC4A1519A0B94E). Praemium Erasmianum
Foundation. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
11. Peccei, Aurelio (1977). The Human Quality. Pergamon. p. 7.
12. Brabyn, Howard (24 August 1977). "Cool Catalyst". New Scientist: 390.
13. Schmelzer, Matthias (2017). "Born in the Corridors of the OECD: The Forgotten Origins of
the Club of Rome, Transnational Networks, and the 1970s in Global History". Journal of
Global History. 12: 26–48. doi:10.1017/S1740022816000322 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS1
740022816000322). S2CID 164497528 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:16449752
8).
14. "History of the Club of Rome" (https://www.clubofrome.org/about-us/history/). Club of Rome.
Retrieved 3 April 2019.
15. Meadows, Donella H; Meadows, Dennis L; Randers, Jorgen; BehrensIII, William W (1972).
The Limits to Growth (https://archive.org/details/TheLimitsToGrowth). Universe Books.
ISBN 9780876631652.
16. "Alexander King: Obituary". The Telegraph. 26 March 2007.
17. "American Fanatics put Scientists Lives at Risk". New Scientist: 219. 22 October 1981.
18. Davis, Mike (2006). Planet of Slums (https://archive.org/details/planetslums00davi_995).
London and New York: Verso. p. 1 (https://archive.org/details/planetslums00davi_995/page/
n5). ISBN 9781844670222.
19. Suter, Keith (2 May 2007). "Alexander King: Obituary". The Guardian.
20. "Erasmus Prize" (http://www.erasmusprijs.org/Prijswinnaars?lang=en&mode=detail&itemid=
D591473F-B606-AF55-B2BC4A1519A0B94E). Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.
Retrieved 3 April 2019.
21. King, Alexander (2006). Let the Cat Turn Round: One Man's Traverse Through the Twentieth
Century. London: CPTM. p. back matter.
22. King, Alexander (1972). Science, Technology and the Quality of Life. London: The Institute
for Cultural Research. ISBN 978-0-950002-98-9. ISSN 0306-1906 (https://search.worldcat.o
rg/issn/0306-1906).
23. King, Alexander; et al. (1975). An Eye to the Future. London: The Institute for Cultural
Research. ISBN 978-0-9500029-1-0.
24. King, Alexander (1972). "Science, Technology and the Quality of Life" (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20190322173458/https://idriesshahfoundation.org/science-technology-and-the-quality
-of-life/). The Institute for Cultural Research via The Idries Shah Foundation. Archived from
the original (https://idriesshahfoundation.org/science-technology-and-the-quality-of-life/) on
22 March 2019. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
25. King, Alexander (2006). Let the Cat Turn Round: One Man's Traverse Through the Twentieth
Century. London: CPTM. p. 10.

External links
The Club of Rome: Beginnings (https://web.archive.org/web/20150720214937/https://www.
mega.nu/ampp/cor.html#1)
Memoirs of a Boffin (http://www.whitehead-family.ca/drrennie/chap13.html) contains some
biographical material on King
CPTM (http://www.cptm.org) contains information about Alexander King's autobiography Let
the Cat Turn Round: One Man's Traverse of the Twentieth Century published by CPTM,
November 2006
Brabyn, Howard (1972). "Cool Catalyst" (https://books.google.com/books?id=eZYmZVJK8k
0C&pg=PA390). New Scientist. 55 (24 Aug): 390–391.

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