Henry Phelps Brown

Sir Ernest Henry Phelps Brown MBE, FBA (10 February 1906 – 15 December 1994) was a prominent British economist. Early years Phelps Brown was born in Calne, Wiltshire. He won a scholarship to The Taunton Academy before winning an open scholarship to Wadham College at Oxford University to study first history, and then philosophy, politics & economics. He combined academic achievement with sporting prowess and enjoyment of the social life of the Oxford Union, attaining a First in History in 1927, a First in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1929, winning a half-blue for cross country running in 1926, and the Secretaryship of the Oxford Union in 1928. He was president of the Diagnostic Society in 1926. Career Directly following completion of his undergraduate studies in 1929, Phelps Brown was appointed a Fellow of the New College, where he taught economics from 1930 to 1947, following a year in the United States as a Rockefeller Travelling Fellow. Phelps Brown joined the British Army at the outbreak of World War II and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. This followed a failed attempt to present himself for service in the Board of Trade as an economic statistician. The chief statistician at that beginning of the war was attempting to reduce the work-force and was releasing statisticians for other war-related work, and by the time a new chief statistician was in place and looked to hire statisticians again, Phelps Brown was embedded with his unit and chose not to leave them. In November 1939 he was posted to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force, and then in 1940 evacuated from Dunkirk.Following a period anti-aircraft gunning around London during the Blitz, in January 1943 he took part in the Operation Torch landings in Algeria, and subsequently in Tunisia became part of the 8th Army. With this formation he took part in the invasion of Sicily and the subsequent campaign in Italy, where he took part in battles such as Monte Cassino. His unit fired their guns for the last time at the crossing of the River Po, by which time he was an acting Lieutenant Colonel commanding a battalion. At the end of the war, he was awarded the MBE.