A dietician who grew up in Dulwich, whose work in nutrition influenced what has been called ‘the healthiest diet Britons have ever had’, has been nominated for a blue plaque.
Dr Elsie May Widdowson CH, CBE, who grew up in Dulwich, was a pioneer in the field and often experimented on herself.
After the First World War, the family lived on Melford Road in East Dulwich, and in 1924 they moved to Underhill Road. She lived in the area for seventeen years and attended Sydenham County Grammar School for Girls (now Sydenham School) and won prizes and scholarships.
Elsie studied chemistry at Imperial College, becoming one of only three women in 100 students in her year. She took her BSc within two years but had to wait until 1928 before being awarded it, becoming one of Imperial’s first female graduates.
Widdowson then studied the biochemistry of animals and humans at Middlesex Hospital and a postgraduate diploma in dietetics at King’s College Hospital, studying how cooking affected food compositions.
In 1936 the 29-year-old sailed to the United States to tell them that they were calculating nutritional values incorrectly, which she ended up being right about.
In 1938, she joined the Department of Experimental Medicine at Cambridge University with her scientific partner, where they experimented on themselves. One day this resulted in them becoming ill and passing out – but on this occasion, they collected the samples and produced a ground-breaking paper.
Widdowson and McCance analysed the effect of different foods on the human body and in 1940, they published The Chemical Composition of Food. Their work became of national importance during World War Two when food imports became limited. They wanted to see how far food produced in Britain could meet the population’s needs. They experimented on themselves again in 1939 when they started a near-starvation diet of bread, cabbage and potatoes combined with rigorous exercise.
This led them to steer the government’s wartime food rationing diet – which has since been acknowledged as the healthiest Britons have ever had. This was just part of the legacy she would leave behind.
In 1979, Elsie was awarded a CBE and was made a Companion of Honour in 1993.
She continued her work and was involved in scientific research until her death aged 93. The British Nutrition Foundation has said, “there is no branch of nutrition science, past or present, that has not been influenced in some way by the results of her pioneering work.”
For the past nineteen years the News is proud to have been one of the founders of the Blue Plaque scheme here in Southwark and nominations are now open for next year.
The scheme came about after the News and Southwark Heritage Association tried to find a way around English Heritage’s strict criteria, that a building must be standing and the person dead for them to qualify.
The latter was not really a problem, but the idea that so much of our rich heritage could not be recognised because a building was no longer there was not acceptable to us. Much of our physical heritage was destroyed in the Blitz, but it is perhaps the 1960s and ‘70s architects who did the most damage. So, we invited Southwark Council to join us in drawing up our own Blue Plaques and getting local people to vote. There are now well over 50 blue plaques across the borough.
To vote for Dr Elsie Widdowson or any of the nominees for a Southwark Blue Plaque, please email isabel@southwarknews.co.uk or admin@southwark.org.uk with the name of the person you want to nominate. Voting closes on Thursday 1st June.