Sir John Donald Balfour Fergusson, GCB (26 August 1891 – 4 March 1963), commonly known as Donald Fergusson,[1] was a British civil servant who as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture had directed the Food Production Campaign during the Second World War.
[2] John Donald Balfour Fergusson was born on 26 August 1891 at Bebington, Cheshire, the son of the Reverend John Moore Fergusson, a Presbyterian minister, and Ethel Catherine Everett, née Evans.
[1] Fergusson was educated at Berkhamsted School and Magdalen College, Oxford.
In 1936 he was promoted to Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture where during the Second World War he was recognised for the planning and success of the scheme to increase food supplies and revitalise the countryside.
[2] In 1945 he became the first Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Fuel and Power where he wrestled with creating a new ministry with opposing interests from the coal, petroleum, gas and electricity industries.