Zuckerman Archive: Natural Resources (Technical) Committee

This series covers the full range of business of the Committee. The correspondence is extensive.

The Natural Resources (Technical) Committee (NRTC) was constituted by the Lord President of the Council in November 1950 to advise on technical problems of the development, use and conservation of natural resources [foreword to the Committee's first report, The Use of Towns' Waste in Agriculture, HMSO, 1954]. The Committee was the successor to the Committee on Industrial Productivity's Imports Substitution Panel (to which Series SZ/CIP refers) and like the Panel, was chaired by Solly Zuckerman. The Committee did not produce a standard annual report but instead submitted reports on specific topics, the study of which was usually delegated to working parties. In the case of agriculture, however, a standing sub-committee, later to be a full committee, was established. This Sub-Committee was also chaired by Solly Zuckerman; its successor, the Committee on Agriculture, was chaired by Dr Frank Yates.

The majority of the NRTC's reports were unpublished, but four were published, all of them relating to agriculture. In addition to The Use of Towns' Waste in Agriculture, these were: Forestry, Agriculture and Marginal Land, HMSO, 1957; The Sheep Industry in Britain, HMSO, 1958; and Scale of Enterprise in Farming, HMSO, 1961.

The unpublished reports were: Sulphur (1951 and 1952); Mineral Development (1952); Pulp Production (1952);Rayon (1952); Expansion of Agriculture(1952-53); Alternatives to Flax (1954); Non-ferrous Metals. Supply and Demand(1954); Production of Pigmeat (1954); Long-term Demand for Steel (1955); Industrial Effluents (1958); and Irrigation (1961).

• SZ/NRTC/1 Agenda and Minutes, 1950-58 [in eight sub-files]
• SZ/NRTC/2 Documents, 1950-1962 [in 13 sub-files]
• SZ/NRTC/3 Correspondence, 1950-1960 [sorting in progress]
• SZ/NRTC/4 Sub-Committee on Agriculture, 1952-59, 1961, 1965 [in four sub-files]
• SZ/NRTC/5 Working Party on Sulphur, 1951-53 [in two sub-files]
• SZ/NRTC/6 Working Party on Copper, Zinc, and their Alloys, 1951 [in two sub-files]
• SZ/NRTC/7 Working Party on Pulp Production, 1951-53 [in two sub-files]
• SZ/NRTC/8 Working Party on Industrial Effluents, 1957-59

Please refer to the fonds-level description for GB 1187 SZ.

BG; DNS

This series is described to series level in the online catalogue of the Zuckerman Archive, and in the general guide to the Zuckerman Archive, Deirdre Sharp: The Zuckerman Archive: a General Guide, University of East Anglia, 2000, which is available in print and online on the Internet.

A bound set of published NRTC reports is available for consultation in the Archives Department, together with MS lists of the contents of the files.

Please refer to the fonds-level description for GB 1187 SZ.