Malcolm Delevingne

Malcolm Delevingne (1868–1950) was an original member of the League of Nations' Opium Advisory Committee, and worked in the British Home Office.

Early life and education

Malcolm Delevingne was the son of a London businessman and was raised in the comfortable suburb of Ealing. He was educated at the City of London School and Trinity College, Oxford taking first class honours in classics. He had strong religious convictions, privately held, which informed his public stance on worker's safety, narcotics and child welfare.

Civil Service

Delevingne entered the British Home Office in 1892 at the age of twenty-four. Within a year he was appointed Private Secretary to the Secretary of State. In 1913 he was sent as part of the British delegation of the International conferences of Labour Regulations at Berne (September 15 to 25). In 1919 he was the British delegate to the Labour Commission of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, and to the International Labour conferences at Geneva and Washington.

While heading the Factory Department at the Home Office, he was one of the principal movers behind the establishment of the International Labour Office and initially served on its Governing body. As one of the Undersecretaries of State at the Home Office he represented the United Kingdom's interests on the League of Nations' Opium Committee from 1931. In time he was promoted to Deputy Permanent Under Secretary of State, a position he held until his retirement in 1932.^[1]

He was an expert on the control of narcotic drugs. He believed that the key to narcotics control lay in curbing their supply. He convinced his colleagues that growers and manufacturers must be forced to cut back production to designated levels. He never gave up on promoting narcotics controls even after the International Opium Convention of 1925. He convinced the League of Nations to intervene in three conferences (1925: Certificate system- the exporter could only sell to a legitimate importer. This was intended to dry up the flow into the market; 1931: Limited production of manufactured drugs, illicit factories then began; 1936: Law enforcement issue, this involved the extradition of drug smugglers and cooperation between countries.) Delevingne continued to promote the prosecution of illicit drug businesses.

Barnardo's

Delevingne became actively involved in the children's foundation Barnardo's in 1903, joining its governing body in 1934, subsequent to his retirement.

References

1. ^ Martindale pp. 31-39

Sources

• South, Nigel (1998). "ch. 6". In Coomber, Ross (ed.). The Control of Drugs and Drug Users: Reason Or Reaction?. CRC Press. ISBN 9057021889. http://books.google.com/books?id=Y6MFcamE2GMC&pg=PR9&dq=isbn=9057021889&sig=T2EDQKyuqWz3mC4xHWdVXbWlU0Y#PPA87,M1. 

• Martindale, Hilda (1970). "Section 3". Some Victorian Portraits and Others. Ayer Publishing. ISBN 9780836980301. http://books.google.com/books?id=vZU1R0XkNRUC&dq=%22Malcolm+Delevingne%22&lr=&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. 

• Goto-Shibata, Harumi (Oct., 2002). "pp. 969-991". The International Opium Conference of 1924-25 and Japan. Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4. JSTOR 3876480. 

• Meyer, Kathryn (2002). "pp. 16-34". Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords and the History of the International Drug Trade. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742520035. http://books.google.com/books?id=RNknjDjfH6AC&pg=PA24&dq=malcolm+Delevingne&lr=&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES#PPA34,M1. 

External links

• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Persondata
Name	Delevingne, Malcolm
Alternative names
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Date of birth	1868
Place of birth
Date of death	1950
Place of death