ROBBINS (OF CLARE MARKET), LIONEL CHARLES ROBBINS, BARON

born Nov. 22, 1898, Sipson, Middlesex, Eng. died May 15, 1984, London economist and leading figure in British higher education. Robbins was educated at the University of London and the London School of Economics. After periods of teaching at the latter university and at New College, Oxford, he was appointed professor of economics at the London School of Economics in 1929, a position he held until 1961. From the first he proved himself an agile theorist, at a time when it was still possible to be an economic theorist without extensive mathematical training. His Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932) has become a methodological classic. His work in the history of economic thought is represented in particular by Theory of Economic Policy (1952) and his study Robert Torrens and the Evolution of Classical Economics (1958). During the 1930s Robbins served as chairman of the London School of Economics' economic theory seminars, which profoundly affected young economists of the period. Robbins was made a life peer in 1959. He was chairman of the Financial Times (196170) and was also chairman of the Committee on Higher Education (196164), which was responsible for the major expansion and reform of British university education in the 1960s.