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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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