Condolences

It is with great sadness that LSE announces the death of Vic Finnigan. Vic retired from LSE in 2014 as Head Porter after 25 years of service.

Two of Vic’s collegues share their memories of Vic. If you would like to join them, please add a comment to the post.

At Vic’s Leaving Do, I said to those assembled:

“I think you would all agree Vic is one of those people who you simply won’t forget. I would describe him as a rough diamond and one cheeky bleeder. You and your lads do a tough job in all weathers, with good humour and are vital to the smooth functioning of the School and it is because of this, you generate genuine respect and affection.”

And yes mate (that’s how he referred to men and woman alike!) you will indeed be fondly remembered by all of us who had the pleasure of knowing you.

Julian Robinson, Director of Estates Division

Having spent 25 years at LSE, Vic was part of the furniture, he knew everything and everyone. Like me, I’m sure there are many of you that enjoyed listening to his stories; and boy did he know how to tell one! He was the go-to man to get stuff done and would never pass you by without stopping and saying hello (usually with a fag hanging out of his mouth!)

Mate! you will be missed, you were one of a kind. There is only one way to describe Vic – A legend!

Francesca Ruscoe, Estates Division

It is with great sadness that we announce Ragnar Norberg, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at LSE, passed away on the 18 December 2017. Professor Norberg is one of the most influential academics working on both insurance and financial mathematics.

Ragnar started his long career at the University of Oslo and then at the Laboratory of Actuarial Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen. He joined LSE as a professor in the Department of Statistics in the spring of 2000 and stayed with us until his retirement in 2010. He finished his career as Chercheur (Research Officer) at Institut de Science Financi`ere et d’Assurances (ISFA) in Lyon, probably the biggest department of its kind in Europe.

He was a visitor at many prestigious institutions around the world. Moscow State University in the old Soviet Union (Ragnar spoke many languages including Russian), ETH Zurich, the University of Manheim,  The University of Stanford and the University of Melbourne. He also engaged in regulatory work serving as an advisor for the Norwegian Insurance Council. Ragnar regarded a paper that he produced for them as the best in his career and maintained that he learned  more in a year there than he learned during his whole academic career. He was a member of Actuarial Socities in Norway, Denmark, Italy and the UK.

During his time at LSE, he contributed enormously to the rapid expansion of the Department of Statistics by establishing the Risk and Stochastics group (now called the Probability in Finance and Insurance group and is the largest in the department) and starting a new MSc programme spanning the interface between Actuarial and Financial Mathematics.

He enjoyed teaching and he had his own style which was based on challenging the students. He turned his office hours into mini-seminars and we fondly remember the long queues of students waiting to pick his brains outside his room. Ragnar’s contribution was not just the large number of papers and books he wrote and edited but also a unique way of thinking that influenced  colleagues and students. This extract is from the Festschrift in a forthcoming book and is in Ragnar’s own words and demonstrates this thinking:

Philosophy and bird watch in finance. “In 2012 ISFA organized a conference on management of financial risk. There was an invited talk on the Black Swan, a lot of talks on how to improve market models, but no talks on how to improve the market. The organizers had been incautious enough to invite my participation in a round table discussion at the end of the conference. I said what I thought and ended with an allegory: “Maybe there are black birds out there that we haven’t seen, but to sit wool-gathering over their possible existence is self-delusion. Instead we should analyze and act upon what we have seen. There are black birds that we know all too well (crows, ravens and vultures feeding on defenceless small animals and on carcasses), and action is needed to cull them. But, alas, there are white birds (geese infamous for their credulity), and there and black and white birds (ostriches burying their heads in the sand), and they do little to improve the quality of bird life. The philosophers have only etc.” By registered sound level and duration of the applause, my 5 minutes intervention was the best received contribution to the conference. Why? I do not think it was just because I presented in a kind of French (the do-as-the-Romans trick), which I did without any ulterior motive (it was a no nonsense Conference Francophone). What I do think is that the audience didn’t think that mathematical and philosophical thinking alone can bring cosmos to the chaos of the deregulated financial markets.”

Professor Angelos Dassios, Department of Statistics

Peter was a big man in every way. He had strong views which he expressed with robust eloquence, he was incredibly quick to pick up sloppy thinking and was always intellectually challenging.

However, what I will remember most about him is his generosity, kindness, compassion and charm. At a somewhat difficult time for the School when I became Interim Director he was always available, generously giving advice, helping us deal with inevitable media interest and providing much needed support to all members of the Director’s Management team.

Despite his many other commitments and interests Peter always made time for LSE. He passionately believed in the importance of education, and the need for open debate over potentially contentious issues; the international character of LSE’s staff and students chimed well with his own strongly held views on the importance of international cooperation.

When Chairing LSE’s Council and Court, Peter could be combative but always in a good humoured way and with the ability to rapidly read the mood of the meeting and defuse tensions. He was a past master at getting difficult decisions made while allowing everyone to have their say. In so many ways Peter was an ideal Chairman, he carefully scrutinized executive decisions and actions, supporting them where properly justified and appropriate but challenging them when greater thought and clarity was required.

Peter was a wonderful man to be with, full of fascinating tales and great wit, and with the ability to make everyone feel that they had something important to contribute. It was a privilege to know him and he will be sorely missed.

Sincere condolences to Maruja his wife and their three children.

Professor Dame Judith Rees
Vice-Chair, Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment 
Interim Director 2011-2012

It was with great sadness that we learned that Peter Sutherland passed away on Sunday 7 January in Dublin, aged 71. Peter was an extraordinary and inspirational man who was a great friend of the School, and served as the Chair of Council and Court from 2008 to 2015.

Peter had an enormously distinguished career before taking on the this role at LSE. He was appointed as the youngest ever Attorney General of Ireland in 1981, and became the youngest  European Commissioner in 1985 (during which time he implemented the establishment of the ERASMUS scheme). In 1993 he became the first Director General of the GATT/World Trade Organisation, and in 2006 became the special representative of the United Nations on migration issues. He was an honorary  ambassador of the UN industrial development organisation, the Chairman of BP and of Goldman Sachs International and the Financial Adviser to the Vatican. He was appointed Honorary Knight Commander of St Michael and St George in 2004 for services to industry.

Handling the LSE council, Court and Council committees was a new experience for Peter but one in which he took on with enthusiasm, in fact with relish, as he had done with so many challenges before in very different working environments. He wanted to know what made LSE tick and genuinely welcomed the input from all the members of Council, and was as interested in the concerns of the student representatives as much as the views of academics and lay governors. Despite being bemused at times by the issues which aroused passions amongst academics and students, he was always prepared to listen patiently, if occasionally with poorly-concealed amazement, to all opinions and was then able to bring Council to agreement on sometimes difficult and sensitive issues. He was unfailingly supportive  to all the members of the Director’s Management Team and took a genuine interest in all aspects of our work, from student-centred initiatives like the Faith Centre and PhD scholarships to significant new research and financial initiatives. Above all, he showed absolute dedication to the School by devoting an enormous amount of time and energy to steer it through very difficult times.

Peter had an insatiable intellectual curiosity and a formidable intellect. He enjoyed being associated with LSE because he relished academic debate. He had a genuine interest in the academic work being undertaken at the School and made contacts with colleagues across many different disciplines. He was awarded an honorary doctorate at LSE in 2015 in recognition of his exceptional contribution to EU and world affairs. He had a passionate interest in the EU and in migration within the EU and globally. He has left a permanent significant legacy to the School through his establishment of the Sutherland Chair in European institutions held in the European Institute.  After he stepped down as Chair he also retained his connection with LSE by becoming  Professor in Practice  in the Institute of Global Affairs and became the leading figure in the Institute’s Global Migration Initiative. He was also wonderful company with an endless supply of good stories and a gift for the perfect punch line. Peter seems to have met everyone worth meeting during an extraordinary career, and had an insightful comment or humorous anecdote to impart about all of them.

It was a privilege to work with Peter and a joy to be in his company. He truly was one of a kind. The School is greatly in his debt and we will miss him sorely.

Professor Janet Hartley
Department of International History
Pro Director Teaching and Learning 2007-12

If you would like to post a tribute to Peter Sutherland, leave your condolences or share any memories you have of him, please comment on this post.

It is with great sadness that we announce George Jones, Emeritus Professor of Government, died on Friday 14 April 2017.

George Jones was a stalwart of the Department of Government for over 50 years, having arrived at LSE as a lecturer from the University of Leeds in 1966, and remaining active – teaching on GV311 during 2016-17 while attending seminars and other events until the week of his death. His work concentrated on the office of Prime Minister, the Cabinet and, particularly, local government. He believed in intellectual integrity and the straightforward expression of ideas – he would, on occasion, describe someone as a ‘simplifier’ of a particular complex field. He was such a simplifier himself. In 2009, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the School.

His doctorate was about the borough politics of his home town, Wolverhampton, published as Borough Politics. His intense interest in politics and the interaction between the personal and the political led him to write, with Bernard (now Lord) Donoughue Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (London Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973) which was re-issued with a foreword by Morrison’s grandson Peter Mandelson in 2001.  He much admired Morrison’s approach to politics and government.

He wrote about advising the Prime Minister and Cabinet with Michael Lee and June Burnham in At the Centre of Whitehall (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998); and edited a study of prime ministers entitled West European Prime Ministers (London: Frank Cass, 1991). He was author of the first study of the private secretaries of prime ministers in “The Prime Ministers’ Secretaries: Politicians or Administrators?” which was published in From Politics to Administration, J.G. Griffith (ed.), (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975). In 2013, he wrote (with Andrew Blick) At Power’s Elbow: Aides to the Prime Minister from Robert Walpole to David Cameron (London: Biteback Publishing, 2013).  In all of this, he enjoyed the cut-and-thrust of politics, including insiders’ insights and the easy familiarity within the confines of Whitehall.

George was a critical friend to the UK’s traditional Westminster system, believing in two party politics, vigorous Parliamentary debate, and offering voters clear choices. But he was a dogged critic too of uncorrected defects in the model, especially the chronic over-centralisation of powers in Whitehall, the decline of Cabinet government and collective responsibility, and Labour’s periodic lurches into uncompetitive policy stances.

His final book, written with Steve Leach and John Stewart, Centralisation, Devolution and the Future of Local Government in England, will be published this summer. Its subject is entirely apt, because a concern for the autonomy and democratic protection of local government was a major element in George’s work throughout the period since he had sat on the Layfield Committee from 1974-76.  He and Professor John Stewart (University of Birmingham) were long-time co-authors of books and articles. For many years they co-wrote a column in Local Government Chronicle.

George was a fast, generous and precise editor. Chapters and articles would be turned around within a day or so, and he always delivered material on time.  He was also a mentor to younger colleagues and was never distant or grand. Latterly, he played Father Christmas at the School’s annual children’s party each December.

His teaching style was clear, authoritative and even combative. He provided an objective analysis of aspects of British government, but made it clear where his personal sympathies lay. He was not, for example, particularly keen on Parliamentary select committees, preferring the floor of the House of Commons as a forum for the exposition of politics and the achievement of accountability. Nor was he an enthusiast for directly-elected executive mayors, preferring more dispersed leadership.

In the years immediately before his retirement, he co-chaired the Greater London Group with Professor Derek Diamond of the Department of Geography.  Throughout his long career at LSE, he was responsible for sustaining the School’s study of London, having spent many hours in Monday afternoon seminars (held in room ‘A588’ as it was then called) led by the Group’s founder, Professor William Robson.  Robson was a protégé of Sidney and Beatrice Webb – thus, George was one of those colleagues who embodied a linear connection with the School’s founders.

He was also much involved with other academic institutions at home and abroad, notably the Institute of Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham. Beyond universities, he sat on a number of committees and boards. He had been on the executive committee of the Royal Institute of Public Administration and in the 1990s was appointed to the National Consumer Council. He received an OBE for his work at the latter.

Outside work, he loved the cinema – Laurel and Hardy were a favourite. He was an expert on American film noir and Westerns, and kept a methodical record of films seen and his reviews of them.  He was also a keen reader of political biographies and diaries.

His presence at LSE seminars, in the SDR and at reunions will be much missed.

Professor Tony Travers
Director LSE London

(With acknowledgements to Patrick Dunleavy and Brendan O’Leary)

David Rockefeller (General Course 1938), who died recently at the age of 101, came to LSE to study economics under the powerful free market duo of Lionel Robbins and Friedrich (von) Hayek.

From his autobiography, it would seem he took full advantage of his time at the School, not only attending lectures by the aforementioned intellectual heavyweights but also, among others, those of the great LSE radical, Harold Laski (about whom he was actually quite scathing). While in London, David also got to know the Kennedy brothers – Joe Junior and JFK – and even for a time dated their sister Kathleen.

Urged by Robbins to continue his studies post-LSE (they remained friends until Robbins died in 1984), David made his way to Chicago, where he studied for a PhD in economics, which he was awarded in 1940 at the remarkably young age of 25.

Thereafter David Rockefeller played several important roles as a banker, independent adviser to many American governments, confidant to the global great and good, supporter of the arts, and – in keeping with the tradition of the Rockefeller family – as a philanthropist in his own right.

Indeed, David himself is credited with having donated no less than $2 billion to various good causes, including biomedical research, education, the arts, healthcare and New York City’s urban revitalisation efforts. In an age when it is politically fashionable to be sceptical about, or even hostile towards, ‘elites’  and their comings and goings, it is worthwhile remembering how one of their more generous and humane number left the world a more enlightened and healthier place than when he had first entered it back in 1915.

In many of the obituaries written this past week, little has been said about either the relationship of Rockefeller philanthropy to LSE or indeed of David’s attendance at the School.

The story about Rockefeller philanthropy itself has been told before, and in some detail, in Ralph Dahrendorf’s affectionate and detailed biography of LSE published in 1995. The basic facts are well known. After the First World War, the Rockefellers began to take the social sciences increasingly seriously and, led by the remarkable Chicago-trained political psychologist Beardsley Ruml, contributed enormously to the School, both in terms of LSE’s actual fabric and in supporting serious research across the board. Although not the School’s only source of income in the inter-war period, the Rockefeller support (notably between 1923 and 1937) was certainly of great importance in helping LSE to become regarded as a world class research institution by end of the 1930s – one which to the present day seeks to use the knowledge it creates to understand the causes of things and improve society.

Furthermore, the Rockefellers’ connection to LSE tells us much about the wider and invaluable relationship the School has always had – and continues to have – with the United States. Put simply, LSE has welcomed many thousands of brilliant American students and faculty to Houghton Street over the years, from the sociologist Talcott Parsons through Paul Volker and Daniel P Moynihan, and onto Supreme Court Justice Anthony M Kennedy, who was the swing vote in 2015 establishing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Throughout the School’s history, US alumni have left Houghton Street and gone on to influence government, politics and society. David Rockefeller was one such person – a prominent and distinguished inter-war American LSE alumnus who left an indelible mark on the world.

Professor Michael Cox
Director LSE IDEAS

It is with great sadness that we announce Professor Sir Tony Atkinson, Centennial Professor at LSE, died on Sunday 1 January 2017.

“We are very sad to report that Tony Atkinson died on the first of January. He was 72. Tony Atkinson was one of the most distinguished economists of the 20th and 21st centuries. He profoundly influenced our thinking on poverty, inequality, mobility, public policy and the economics of growth. From his first book in 1969, Poverty in Britain and the Reform of Social Security (Cambridge University Press), to his last, Inequality: What Can Be Done? (Harvard University Press, 2015), he demonstrated the great care and rigour which should characterise serious economics. His approach was: identify the issues, examine the facts and the forces that shape them, and ask what we can or should do. And through his technical work on his index of inequality and on public policy in imperfect economies he showed how analytical rigour could change our understanding. Based on his work on inequality and market imperfections, his was one of the clearest voices challenging the “market fundamentalism” of the 1980s and 1990s.

“He was Tooke Professor at LSE from 1980-92 and Centennial Professor from 2010. He was Chair of the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD) from 1980 to 1988 and, with its founding chair (1978-80) Professor Michio Morishima, made it one of the world’s leading research centres.

“Tony was not only an extraordinary leader through his writing  but also in his building and reinvigorating of institutions, from his time at Essex (where he went as a professor aged 27) to Nuffield College, Oxford where he was a much loved Warden, 1994-2005. He founded the Journal of Public Economics in 1971 and was editor for nearly two decades. With Mervyn King and Nick Stern he initiated at STICERD the ESRC programme on “Taxation, Incentives and the Distribution of Income” which lasted for 12 years coinciding with his time at the School. This was one of the ESRC’s first and longest lasting research programmes. There are many more examples of Tony building and nurturing institutions that were both of the highest quality and endured.

“His distinction was recognised across the world. For example, he was President of the Econometric Society, of the Royal Economic Society, of the European Economic Association, and of the International Economic Association. He was awarded 19 honorary doctorates.

“He was a great European; the majority of his honorary doctorates were from European non UK universities. He worked in a hospital in a deprived area of Hamburg before going to University. He was involved in the economic analysis of the potential effects of joining the European Economic Community in the early 1970s prior to the referendum on joining in 1975. He was President of the Luxembourg Income Study from 2011 which has made a great contribution to international comparisons of well-being and inequality. He was a member of France’s Counseil d’Analyse Economique, 1997-2001, and was Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. Last year he was awarded the prestigious Dan David Prize for his work on poverty and inequality (shared with Francois Bourguignon and James Heckman).

“It was not just as an academic and leader of academic institutions that we remember Tony. He was the finest of human beings. His decency, humanity and integrity were profound and extraordinary. He was quiet and understated but deep and strong. He was charming and he could be very funny, including irony of the highest class. He was a special colleague, always ready with his support and wisdom.

“He met his wife Judith (neé Mandeville) at Cambridge as undergraduates when they were 19. They were married for more than 50 years. They shared and reinforced their commitment to making the world a better place and tackling injustice. They took great pride in and strength from their three children Richard, Sarah and Charles, their spouses and their eight grandchildren.
Nick Stern
IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government
Chair of STICERD, 1988-1993

“Tony made fundamental and original theoretical contributions to economics in general, and to public economics and the analysis of economic inequality in particular. He also undertook original and innovative empirical analysis of economic inequalities, and of their relationship to economic institutions such as the welfare state. He made major contributions to applied statistics and the development of social indicators. His work brought the analysis of distributional issues back to a central position in economics. It is no overstatement to say that the modern analysis of economic inequality started with Tony’s 1970 paper in the Journal of Economic Theory.

“Aside from his academic contributions (which made him a leading contender for a Nobel prize), Tony made major contributions to social and public policy in the UK and internationally throughout his career, from his first book (Poverty in Britain and the Reform of Social Security, 1969), to his major report in October 2016 on Monitoring Global Poverty completed as chairman of the World Bank Commission on Global Poverty. In between, he made many other major contributions including to the measurement of government outputs and productivity, and to development of indicators on social inclusion and poverty for the EU. Tony was a pioneer (with Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez) of the study of ‘top incomes’ and inequality.

“Tony will also always be remembered for his outstanding personal qualities. He was sagacious in so many fields and yet so modest and kind, and the epitome of decency, humanity, and collegiality. Despite being very busy, Tony provided many of us friendly but incisive comments on our work, and was a continuing source of encouragement, support, and inspiration. He will be sorely missed.”
Professor Stephen Jenkins
Head of the Department of Social Policy

“He was a remarkable academic and a wonderful colleague who will be sorely missed.”
Professor Julia Black
Interim Director

You can explore STICERD’s wall of remembrance for Professor Sir Tony Atkinson here http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/atkinson/ 

If you would like to post a tribute to Tony; leave your condolences or share any memories you have of him please comment on this post.

It is with the greatest regret and overwhelming sadness that we inform you that Helen Reece, Associate Professor of Family Law, died on Wednesday 26 October 2016.

Helen studied Law (LLB) at University College London and Logic and Scientific Method (MSc) at LSE. She qualified as a barrister in 1992, and lectured in Law at University College London (1993-1998) and Birkbeck College, where she was appointed Lecturer in 1998 and Reader in 2004. She joined LSE Law as an Associate Professor (Reader) in 2009.

At LSE, Helen taught family law and the law of obligations. Her research focused mainly on family law, but it was much broader in range, characterised above all by the aim to uncover and contest the social and political assumptions behind existing legal rules and prevailing opinion. Her work on adoption, parenthood, domestic violence and, more recently, the law of sexual offences identified her as one of the most original thinkers of her generation. Her monograph, Divorcing Responsibly (2003), on the influence of post-liberal notions of choice on the law of divorce, was awarded the Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize in 2004. Helen’s article on ‘Loss of Chances in the Law’, published in the Modern Law Review in 1996, and winner of the Wedderburn Prize in 1997, has been cited with approval by the House of Lords, and been a major point of reference in tort scholarship. With Michael Freeman, she edited several works and collections on the relationship between law and science (Law and Science: Current Legal Issues (1998); Science in Court (1998)). She was a founding member of Institute of Ideas Parents’ Forum, and a member of the editorial boards of Law, Probability and Risk, the International Journal of Law in Context, and the Modern Law Review. She was a regular contributor to radio and television programmes.

This catalogue of achievement does not begin to account for all the qualities that made Helen special to her colleagues in LSE Law, and to her much wider networks of colleagues and friends: her good humour, her keenness to engage with other colleagues’ work, her outstanding record as a teacher and research supervisor, the fearlessness, integrity and sense of duty she brought to all her endeavours. We mourn the passing of a brilliant scholar, and a cherished colleague and friend. Our thoughts and hearts go out to Helen’s partner, John, and their children, Hannah and Ben.

“I was desperately sad to hear the news that Helen died yesterday.  It’s a deep loss for all of us at LSE and a far greater loss for her family. Helen was on the board of the Modern Law Review (MLR), as am I, and in both LSE Law and on the MLR she was a wonderful colleague. She was spirited, engaged, energetic and constantly driving us forward. She was also incredibly supportive, thoughtful and kind. I have her to thank for encouraging me to take on the general editorship of the MLR – she was adamant that it should be a woman for the first time in 74 years! That was typical of her – fiercely principled but personally such a warm and supportive colleague. We will all miss her greatly. My thoughts are with her family and friends at this terrible, terrible time”.
Professor Julia Black
Interim Director

“Helen was a wonderfully dynamic and forceful character, and a tower of strength in her family and in the Department. The freshness, daring and iconoclasm of her scholarship meant that, of anything she wrote, one could without question say that once read, it would not be forgotten. We will all miss her terribly. In due course we will find an appropriate way to honour her, and details about this will be posted on the website”.
Professor Jeremy Horder
Head of LSE Law

If friends of Helen would like to make a donation to charity in her memory, her family inform us that any charity would be appropriate. Helen also supported the work of hospices, such as Marie Curie.

An obituary for Helen can be read in The Guardian here.

If you would like to post a tribute to Helen; leave your condolences or share any memories you have of her please comment on this post.