Sir Ivison Stevenson Macadam (18 July 1894 – 22 December 1974) was the first Director-General of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and the founding President of the National Union of Students.
He was also the editor and chairman of the advisory board of the Annual Register of World Events; a longtime member of the editorial board of the Round Table and sat on the governing bodies of King's College, London and other organisations.
Early life
Born 18 July 1894 at Slioch, Lady Road, Edinburgh, he was the second son of Colonel William Ivison Macadam, (1856–1902), and Sarah Maconochie MacDonald (1855–1941). He was the grandson of Stevenson Macadam, (1829–1901).
Educated at Melville College, Edinburgh, he was the second King's Scout to be invested in Scotland, and the first Silver Wolf Scout in Scotland, awarded for "services of the most exceptional character by gift of the Chief Scout". He was invested by Chief Scout and founder Sir Robert Baden-Powell.
World War One
He served in World War I, attached to the City of Edinburgh (Fortress) Royal Engineers. He was the youngest major in the British Army as Officer Commanding Royal Engineers, Archangel, North Russian Expeditionary Force, the ill-fated Allied military campaign 1918–1919 following the armistice with Germany, and the final major military action of WWI (Mentioned in dispatches [MID] three times). He was awarded the OBE in 1919 at the age of 24 for his service there. He studied at King's College London and Christ's College, Cambridge.
National Union of Students
He was the founder president of the National Union of Students, being elected their first president in 1922 when the Inter-Varsity Association and the International Students Bureau merged at a joint meeting held at the University of London. He was the then president of King's College Union Society.
After his experience in the First World War in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science he stated his vision of the role that the NUS would play.thumb|Macadam House, the present NUS Headquarters opened in 2013 at 275 Gray's Inn Road, King's Cross, London
The NUS's founding constitution stipulated that it must operate as a non-political and non-religious student organisation as the factional differences among nations were felt to have led to the recent world conflict. The non-political stipulation was dropped in 1969.
From its outset the NUS founders were also noteworthy in ensuring that women were involved at its highest levels through a constitutional requirement.
Macadam was involved in the formation Confédération Internationale des Étudiants (International Confederation of Students) bringing together student bodies from the original member countries of the League of Nations, including the US, and subsequently others. The CIE inaugural conference was held in Prague in 1921. He chaired until 1929 the CIE's commission responsible for International Relations and Travel.
thumb|Macadam Cup 2008
He stepped down as the NUS President in December 1922 to serve as Honorary Organising Secretary, which became in effect their senior executive until 1929. While still at Cambridge, he was able to obtain the financing for a permanent headquarters for the NUS at Endsleigh Street, London, W.C.1.(opened in 1925). Its headquarters remained there until the properties were sold in 2010 to acquire their new building Macadam House at 275 Gray's Inn Road, London. In 1927 Macadam spearheaded a successful fundraising appeal to endow the Union and place it on a sound financial footing. He was one of the original trustees of the National Union of Students and remained one until the end of his life.
The main students' union building and Faculty of Engineering at King's College's Strand campus is named the Macadam Building in his honour (opened 1975).
In 2004, KCLSU President Michael Champion instituted the Macadam Cup, a day of sporting excellence between medical and non-medical students at the college.
A new NUS National Headquarters was named Macadam House in 2013 at 275 Gray's Inn Road, London, WC1X 8QB.
Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House)
thumb|Chatham House, 10 St. James's Square, London
He was the first Secretary and Director-General of the Royal Institute of International Affairs serving as its chief executive between 1929 and 1955 based at Chatham House, 10 St. James's Square, London, S.W.1.
A London County Council blue plaque on Number 10 states "Here lived Three Prime Ministers WILLIAM PITT Earl of Chatham 1708–1778 Edward Geoffrey Stanley EARL OF DERBY 1799–1869 William Ewart GLADSTONE 1809–1898". The Grade I listed building designed by Henry Flitcroft in 1730s was named on its gifting to the institute after the first of these three Prime Ministers (Pitt the Elder) as Chatham House. Macadam oversaw the growth of the institute from William Pitt's former Cabinet Room where as Prime Minister Pitt had presided over his Cabinet overlooking St. James's Square located above the entrance hall.
To enable the institute to increase the breadth and range of its activities, Macadam steadily expanded office and meeting space for the Institute by acquiring the freehold properties adjoining 10, St James Square (Chatham House).
Macadam was responsible for numerous international conferences around the world. He organised the first Commonwealth Relations Conference at Hart House, University of Toronto, Canada in 1933 (the first Commonwealth conference per se). thumb|alt=Better exposed image but otherwise same as Caroline Ladd Corbett Macadam|Caroline Ladd Corbett Macadam (Lady Macadam) 1910–1989 It was followed by him being responsible for other Commonwealth Relations conferences at Lapstone near Sydney, Australia in 1938, at Chatham House, London in 1945, at Lucknow, India in 1950, the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and at Lahore, Pakistan in 1954, the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Also various Institute of Pacific Relations Conferences, including that at Banff, Canada (1933) followed by Yosemite, USA (1936). He was a participant in the Congress of Europe at The Hague, Netherlands in 1948.
He travelled to the British Dominions and helped the independent establishment of the various Commonwealth Institutes of International Affairs or where such bodies had earlier been established in both Australia and Canada to generate financial support from benefactors in order that they could have their own full-time secretariats. The Canadian Institute of International Affairs funding 1932 (now known as the Canadian International Council); the Australian funding 1934. The formation of the Institutes in New Zealand 1934; in South Africa 1934; in Indian 1936; in Pakistan 1947.
Ministry of Information
thumb|An early Ministry of Information poster Macadam was responsible for.
He was Assistant Director General and Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Information during World War II between 1939 – 41. but once war broke out part of the Ministry's wartime role became very obvious. Among the monikers it was given was Ministry of Morale. Among its most visual activities were the hundreds of different posters it produced throughout the war for use all over Britain on billboards, in the London Underground, in railway stations and elsewhere where people congregated. Among its most memorable today is one of its first that it is believed Macadam simply scribbled out as "Keep Calm and Carry On", and told the staff to make it look noticeable and official for use in the event of a major bombing campaign or large seaborne attack that was expected: a large number were printed in red with a crown at the top in 1939, but never actually used because of the unexpected initial quiet period of the Phoney War when it would not have made sense. An artistic department, employing professional poster designers, was subsequently established, and produced hundreds of morale-boosting posters throughout the rest of the war.
The ministry's other activities in overseeing broadcasting and censorship were less obvious.
Macadam returned to the Royal Institute in March 1941 to continue its war work and oversee the post-war international reconstruction planning there with the additional important support of the US Rockefeller Foundation.
Former prime minister Harold Macmillan told Macadam's succeeding editor that he could never have written his memoirs without reference to the Annual Register.
The Annual Register had undoubtedly been used by many in writing their memoirs; however, when Winston Churchill was a young subaltern in India and yet to obtain high office, he asked his mother to send him as many volumes of The Annual Register from previous years that she could find. He read these and annotated them with his criticisms or his views on improvements of prior prime minister's speeches or policies written in the margins. For a future world statesman this was obviously an ingenius way to educate himself about world affairs and politics. His marked up volumes of The Annual Register are today in the Churchill Archives at Cambridge University.
After overseeing 26 annual editions Macadam retired as the editor of The Annual Register in 1972.