James Peck (civil servant)

Sir James Wallace Peck CB (3 May 1875 – 3 February 1964) was a British civil servant and local government officer.

Peck was educated at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, the University of Glasgow and Christ Church, Oxford. He lectured in mathematical physics at Glasgow University for four years before becoming an Inspector of Schools in Scotland in 1903. In 1905 he was appointed Principal Assistant to Sir Robert Blair, director of the London County Council Education Service, and in 1910 returned to Scotland as Clerk to the Edinburgh School Board. In 1912 he became Chief Inspector of National Health Insurance in Scotland.

On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery and served until 1918, reaching the rank of Captain. In 1918 he was appointed Senior Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Food, a post which he held until the Ministry's disbandment in 1921, when he be became Chief Inspector of the Scottish Board of Health.

From 1924 to 1926 he served as Assistant Secretary of the National Health Insurance Commission and was responsible for organising emergency arrangements for Scotland during the 1926 General Strike. In 1930 he returned to the Scottish Education Department as Second Secretary and became Permanent Secretary in 1936. In 1938 he was seconded to the Food (Defence Plans) Department, preparing for food control on the inevitable outbreak of the Second World War. When the war came, he was appointed Chief Divisional Food Controller for Scotland and held the post until his retirement in 1946.

Peck was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1920 New Year War Honours^[1] and was knighted in 1938.

In 1911 he married the novelist Winifred Knox, who died in November 1962.

Footnotes

References

• Obituary, The Times, 6 February 1964
• Who Was Who