Biography

The subject of this study is unusual among economists, not only in having written an autobiography but in having produced a highly readable document in so doing.1 Robbins was, he tells us, born on 22 November 1898 at Sipson Farm (now submerged in the environs of Heathrow Airport) Middlesex.2 He was notably of mixed English and French Huguenot descent, with the massive solidity of Gloucester origins, although it appears that parts of his ancestry could also be traced to Wales and East Anglia.3 The French and English parts of his inheritance were somewhat oddly juxtaposed — a strong common sense was paired with an extreme artistic sensibility, more especially to the arts of literature and painting.4 His origins have been described as ‘relatively humble’,5 but they were not straitened. His father was a successful farmer who became President of the National Farmers’ Union in 1921 (and served again in 1925) and who was High Sheriff of Middlesex in 1945 and 1946.