Catalogue description PAPERS OF G.L.S. SHACKLE (1903-1992)

Professor Shackle began depositing his papers in CUL in 1965, and made further deposits in 1966, 1973, 1978, 1982 and 1987. A final deposit was made by Mrs Shackle in 1992 and 1995. The papers fall into two main divisions: writings (published and unpublished) (sections 1-7 of list) and correspondence (section 9). There is an introductory section (SB) of material put together by Shackle, and a miscellaneous section (8) of e.g. items of biographical interest, and articles by other people.

a) Writings

For each of Shackle's works there may be any or all of :

- preliminary jottings and drafts

- longhand fair copy of final text

- correspondence with the publisher

- final printed text

- reviews, articles mentioning the work.

They have been arranged by category (books, articles, reviews etc) and chronologically within each section, following the bibliography in S. Frowen (ed): Unknowledge and Choice in Economics: Proceedings of a Conference in Honour of G.L.S.Shackle, London 1990. There is a final section (7) for unpublished or unidentified works.

b) Correspondence

This consists mainly of letters to Shackle from other academic economists, from the publishers of his books, and from editors of journals. There are some copies of his replies, either interfiled, or in separate series. Shackle himself selected and arranged the letters, and had the earlier ones microfilmed before depositing them at Cambridge. He numbered and listed them in eleven chronological series, beginning in 1949 (the year of publication of Expectation in Economics) and extending to 1982. There are a few letters for the years 1938-1948, and a final series of letters c.1978-1992, deposited by Mrs Shackle and arranged alphabetically by name of writer.

SB Special collection of books and papers ("Sybilline Books") Box 1

1 Books by Shackle Boxes 2-7

2 Chapters contributed to books Boxes 8-9

3 Articles in journals Boxes 10-11

4 Review articles Box 11

5 Reviews Box 11

6 Short articles or notes Box 11

7 Unpublished or unidentified writings Boxes 12-13

8 Miscellaneous Boxes 14-17

9 Correspondence Boxes 18-28

Index of correspondents

Shackle, George Lennox Sharman, 1903-1992, economist

The Times: Obituary 12 March 1992

The Independent: Obituary by S. Frowen

G.C. Harcourt: "Notes on an Economic Querist: G.L.S.Shackle", Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Fall 1981, vol IV no.1.

P. Arestis and M. Sawyer (eds): A Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists, Aldershot 1992

M. Blaug: Great Economists since Keynes: an introduction to the lives and works of one hundred modern economists, Brighton 1985

J.L. Ford: 'G.L.S. Shackle (1903-1992): a life with uncertainty', Economic Journal 103, 1993

B.J. Loasby: George Lennox Sharman Shackle, Proceedings of the British Academy 84 (1994)

• Economics

George Lennox Sharman Shackle was born in Cambridge on 14 July 1903 and was educated at the Perse School. Being unable, for financial reasons, to take up a place at St Catherine's College in 1920 he worked in a bank and later as a schoolmaster, and studied for an external degree from London Univer-sity, which he obtained in 1931.

In 1934 he won a Leverhulme Research Scholarship to the London School of Economics (taken up in January 1935), where his supervisor was F.A.Hayek. After hearing a lecture by Joan Robinson at a seminar in Cambridge in 1935 he got Hayek's permission to study the ideas of Keynes, and wrote as his doctoral dissertation (1937) what became his first published book: Expectations, Investment and Income (1938). In March 1937 he joined the Oxford University Institute of Statistics, as research assistant to Henry Phelps Brown, and the work done in his two years there resulted in a dissertation for an Oxford D.Phil. degree (1940).

In 1939 Shackle was appointed to the Economics Department of St Andrews University, but on the outbreak of war was called to London, to work in Sir Winston Churchill's Statistical Branch of the Cabinet Office until 1945, and thereafter in the Economics Section of the Cabinet Secretariat. In 1950 he was made Reader in Economic Theory at Leeds University, and in 1951 Brunner Professor of Economic Science at Liverpool University, where he remained until his retirement in 1969.

Shackle was Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York, 1957-8, and at Pittsburg University 1966-7. After his retirement he lectured in Belfast. He gave the F. De Vries Lectures in Amsterdam in 1957 and the British Academy Keynes Lecture in 1976. He was a member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society 1955-1969, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1967, and of the Econometric Society in 1960. He was President of Section F (Economics) of the British Association in 1966. He published more than a dozen books, and contributed many articles and reviews to learned journals.

Shackle married G.C. Susan Rowe in 1939 and had two sons and two daughters. Mrs Shackle died in 1978 and in 1979 he married Catherine Gibb (née Weldsmith). He lived in retirement in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, and died there on 3 March 1992.h

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