SIR HENRY

FRENCH

FILMS AND

FOOD

Sir Henry French, G.B.E., K.C.B., a former Director-General of the British Film Producers' Association, and Secretary at the Ministry of Food during the Second World War, died yesterday.

After 11 years as Director-General. he became President of the British Film Producers' Association. and he retired in 1958.

He had had in the course of a long and specially active life, two quite varied

careers. For nearly

47 years he was a Civil Servant and then for more than a decade he was outstanding figure in the British film industry.

Henry Leon French was born in 1883. the third son of the late F. E. French, J.P.. of Southsca, and was educated privately and at King's College, London. Hc

joined the Civil Service by open competition, and in 1901 was appointed to the then Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. Promoted to the first division in 1909, he became assistent secretary in 1920, and remained in that post until 1929, when he became principal assistant secretary. Five years later he was promoted second secretary at the Ministry, and in 1936 when it was thought necessary to be prepared for war, he became director of the food (defence plans) department. In 1939 he was appointed permanent secretary of the Ministry of Food and held office until a few wceks after the war ended. He retired from the Civil Service in the following year.

Hc had served as secretary to Viscount Milner's committee on the Home Production of Food in 1915, joint secretary to Lord Selborne's committee on Agricultural Policy from 1916 to 1917, general secretary of the Food Production Department from 1917 to 1919. He represented the United Kingdom and Canada on the permanent committee of the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome from 1930 to 1934. He attended the Ottawa Conference as Departmental Adviser in 1932 and during 1939-45 paid several visits to Canada, the United States, India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Even after leaving the food ministry officiaUy, he was from time to time called in for consultations, and he did a good deal of valuable work with Unesco.

He was a most modest man, tending always to decry his own work and to give credit to others. When, for example, he reviewed, in the columns of The Times, Mr. R. J. Hammond's second volume on the administration and control of food as part of the second volume of the history of the Second World War, he did not once mention the part he himself had Played. As chief official of the Film Producers' Association, he brought to bear upon his duties all his powers of organization, drive and quiet persistence. His early years as Director-General were greatly concerned with the vexed issue of quotas as between the display of British and foreign films, and some of the tougher American negotiators found him equally tough in his handling of the various situations which arose....