----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 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) ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]