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I am sad to announce the passing of Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, 
 
Dr. Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson died on April 12th in Malaga, Spain a few 
weeks shy of her 94th birthday. She was born at Eastbourne, England on 26 
May 1909 to a successful London solicitor, George William Grice-Hutchinson 
and his wife Edith Louise. At any early age she mastered  French and 
Spanish and in her later years added German and Latin. In 1924, her 
father's professional work took him to Madrid and the family took up 
residence near Malaga, although Marjorie studied for an honors degree in 
Spanish at London University and on holiday remained an avid cross-country 
skier in Switzerland. She skied well into her advanced years and remained 
athletic and active throughout her long life. 
 
In February 1941, Marjorie was drafted into Britain's Foreign Department to 
serve in the intelligence unit and help with translation work. It was 
during the war that she developed an interest in economics. When the war 
ended, she was offered a teaching job at King's College, London and in 1948 
she was appointed Full Lecturer and Head of the Department of Spanish at 
Birkbeck College of London University.  She also taught a specialty course 
on the art of translation into English and Spanish at the London School of 
Economics.  
 
At the London School, Marjorie came under the influence of the famed 
economist, Friedrich von Hayek who would subsequently receive the Nobel 
prize in economics for his work on monetary economics and business cycles. 
Hayek was also an expert on the history of economics. Another teacher and 
advisor was Professor R. S. Sayers also of the London School. They urged 
her to study the manuscripts of what at that time were an obscure group of  
16th and early 17th century clerics writers who lectured at the University 
of Salamanca on topics of great interest having to do with the morality of 
money, its varying purchasing power and how valuation occurs in market 
place settings. Marjorie exhumed and translated into English long passages 
from their works most of which were recorded in Latin on manuscripts 
located in Spain. Her handsome monograph School of Salamanca. Readings in 
Spanish Monetary Theory, 1544-1605 was published by the Clarendon Press at 
Oxford, in 1952. In addition, she explored the broader cultural and 
historical context in which these writings took place.  These efforts made 
her an authority on business life on the Peninsula at a time when 
Christian, Jewish and Islamic families lived side by side.   
 
Later in life, in 1978, she published Early Economic Thought in Spain and 
managed over the years to prepare lectures and essays that were later 
translated and published under the title Economic Thought in Spain: 
Selected Essays of Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson in 1993. A Spanish edition of 
this last work appeared in 1995. 
 
In 1951 she married Baron Ulrich von Schlippenbach who was a farmer and 
owner of a large farm estate near Malaga known as San Julian. As Baroness 
von Schlippenbach, she worked in the local community to  establish a school 
for 120 poor neighborhood children. She remained a keen observer of local 
life and an authority on the Andulusian countryside and its institutions. 
Her Malaga Farm was published in 1956 and her 1962 Children of the Vega was 
written at the request of the Ministry of Education in New Zealand which 
used that text in its schools to describe the life of children in an 
Mediterranean community. In 1984 Marjorie donated that farm to the 
University of Malaga and it is now used as a center for scientific research 
and a botanical garden. 
 
In 1959 Marjorie was awarded the 'Cinta de Dama' in the Spanish Order of 
Civil Merit. In 1975 she was appointed member of the Order of the British 
Empire.  Two honorary doctorates in economics followed. The first by the 
University of Malaga (1992) and the second, amidst much pomp and 
celebration, at the Complutensian University of Madrid in 1993. She was 
especially touched by recognition afforded her in America as well, when in 
1994 the History of Economic Society meeting at Babson College outside of 
Boston awarded her their prestigious Distinguished Fellowship in 
recognition of her lifetime efforts to promote knowledge about the 
development of economic thought in southern Europe and especially Spain 
during the years when the study of the rich cultural traditions and ideas 
on the Iberian peninsula were completely overlooked by historians and 
seldom mentioned at all in the textbooks on the history of economics. 
Today, due in part to her lifetime efforts historians refer to the 
"Mediterranean tradition" in economic thought. 
             
 
Sources 
 
Baeck, Louis, 1994. The Mediterranean Tradition in Economic Thought, 
London: Routlege. 
 
Gamez, Aurora, "Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson (b. 1909)" in R. W. Dimand, M. A. 
Dimand and E. L. Forget, eds. 2000.  A Biographical Dictionary of Women 
Economists (Cheltenham, U.K., Edward Elgar Pub.) 
 
Moss, L. S. and C. K. Ryan, eds. 1993. "Introduction" to M. 
Grice-Hutchinson, Economic Thought in Spain: Selected Essays of Marjorie 
Grice-Hutchinson (Cheltenham, U.K., Edward Elgar Pub.) 
 
 
Prepared by Laurence S. Moss (Babson College) 
 
 
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