The County Herb Committees were a nationwide medicinal plant collecting scheme, established by the British Ministry of Health during the Second World War.
The County Herb Committees were set up at a time when the German occupation of France and the disruption of shipping lanes interfered with drug supplies.
As in the First World War, the British found that the Germans still largely dominated the pharmaceutical industry and consequently by the early 1940s there were critical shortages of essential medicines in hospitals and homes across Britain.
First the Vegetable Drugs Committee (VDC) of the Ministry of Supply was established in March, 1941, and the involvement of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, was led by Dr. Ronald Melville, an economic botanist and pharmacist.
Various groups such as Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Women's Institutes and the elderly, were enlisted as collectors by Sir Arthur William Hill, Director of Kew.