People

Following the announcement of Dame Shirley Pearce as the new Chair of the Court of Governors, LSE Archivist Sue Donnelly provides a history of her predecessors.

1901-1911

Sidney Webb (1859-1947)

Sidney Webb, one of the School’s founders, was the first Chairman of the Court of Governors after the School joined the University of London. He took a particular interest in the work of […]

Stella Bowen’s portrait of Sir Arthur Bowley hangs in the Department of Statistics. Sue Donnelly tells the story behind the picture.

1935 marked the retirement of Sir Arthur Bowley, one of the School’s original teachers. On 28 November 1935 the Emergency Committee agreed to commission a portrait to mark his retirement, funded by public subscription.

The committee appointed to oversee the […]

Featuring two of LSE’s founders, the Webb portrait hangs above the fireplace in the Shaw Library. Sue Donnelly tells the story of Sidney and Beatrice Webb at Passfield Corner by William Nicholson.

“In the present year Mr and Mrs Sidney Webb keep a joint seventieth birthday and it is proposed to celebrate this event by securing the painting of a […]

Following her review of Paul Robeson: the artist as revolutionary by Gerald Horne at the LSE Review of Books, Sherese R Taylor introduces the life of Eslanda Robeson, who studied at LSE in the 1930s.

Eslanda Cordozo Goode Robeson, also known as Essie, was an anti-racist, anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist, and feminist born in Washington, DC on 15 December 1895. She received a scholarship from […]

Professor Julia Black is LSE’s 2016-17 interim Director and Dame Nemat (Minouche) Shafik will take the reins from September 2017 as the next Director of LSE. Sue Donnelly, LSE Archivist, provides a quick guide to their 14 predecessors.

1895-1903

William Hewins (1865-1931)

LSE’s first Director was an economic historian whose organisational skills saw LSE grow from its beginnings in Adelphi Terrace to […]

Lukas Cladders and Ursula Ferdinand share the story of world population specialist Robert René Kuczynski. He joined LSE in the 1930s after fleeing Nazi Germany, and became the first Reader in Demography in a British university in 1938.

Born in 1876 into a family of Jewish bankers in Berlin, Robert René Kuczynski studied economics and law in Freiburg and with the famous […]

Beatrice Potter and Sidney Webb married on 23 July 1892. On their wedding anniversary, LSE Archivist Sue Donnelly looks back at their unique courtship.

On 8 January 1890 Beatrice Potter was introduced to Sidney Webb by her cousin Margaret Harkness. Beatrice had read Fabian Essays published in 1889 telling a friend that “by far the most significant and interesting essay is […]

LSE Centennial Professor Mary Evans charts the history of women at LSE and the changing attitudes towards gender in higher education and society that occurred throughout LSE’s early decades. 
LSE opened in 1895 and among its famous founders were Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb. Much less well known among those who contributed to the funds for the School was Charlotte Payne Townshend, the wife of George Bernard […]

A hundred years ago on 6 July 1916 Arthur Steel-Maitland was elected LSE governor and Chairman of the Court of Governors. He replaced the Liberal politician Russell Rea who had died in February 1916.

Steel-Maitland (then simply Arthur Steel) was born in India and educated at Rugby School before winning a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. There he took a […]

LSE’s Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, opened in November 1896. In the second of a series of posts celebrating LSE Library’s 120th anniversary in 2016, Graham Camfield shares the little-known story of Sidney Webb the bibliographer.

As a seasoned researcher Sidney Webb highly valued the work of librarians in compiling indexes and bibliographies. From early in the LSE […]

On the 125th anniversary of Ambedkar’s birth, Sonali Campion looks back on the life of the leading jurist and social reformer. She considers how his education in India and abroad, as well as his lifelong campaign to advance the rights of minorities, meant he was uniquely qualified to lead the process of crafting of the Indian Constitution after independence.

Thursday […]

While the roll call of LSE alumni features notable journalists and novelists, one important literary figure associated with the School doesn’t feature, because he left without graduating. His name was Basil Bunting, and along with careers as a spy and sea captain, he was one of the key British poets of the twentieth century.

Born in 1900 in Newcastle upon […]

Clara Cook shares her experience making an LSE oral history. The Tales from Houghton Street podcast and collection are now available at LSE’s Digital Library. 

The first recording I ever made of someone’s voice was when I was 2 years old. I held out a tape recorder to my mother and asked her to say the words ‘peanut butter.’ Since then I have […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Sue Donnelly looks back at Ellen Marianne Leonard: first woman President of the LSE Students’ Union. 

In 1907 the LSE Students’ Union elected its first woman President, also known as the Chairman of the Common Rooms Committee. Ellen Marianne Leonard (1866-1953) was a 41 year […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Adam Kuper looks back at  Audrey Richards: LSE alumna and anthropologist. 

Unprejudiced, unshockable, in many ways unconventional, Audrey Richards nevertheless operated unselfconsciously by the standards of her parents and their class.

Born in London in 1899, Audrey was the second daughter of Henry Erle and Isabel Richards. […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Sue Donnelly looks back at Margaret Gowing: LSE alumna, civil servant and academic. 

The historian Margaret Gowing (1921-1998) was the author of histories of the Second World War and the UK’s nuclear power and nuclear deterrent capacity. In a 1988 letter to LSE Director I […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Clara Cook looks back at Baroness Stocks: LSE alumna, economist and activist. 

Mary Danvers Stocks began to challenge the world around her when she was just a child. In 1899, when she was only 8 years old, she announced that she supported the Boers in their war […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Sue Donnelly looks back at Christian Mactaggart: School Secretary 1896-1919. 

On 24 June 1943 a telegram arrived from Australia for LSE’s Director, Alexander Carr-Saunders, announcing the death of Christian Scipio Mactaggart who from 1896-1919 worked as School Secretary – not always with the title.

We know little […]

The theme of the 2016 LGBT History Month is ‘religion, belief and philosophy’. In the wake of the January 2016 meeting of the leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion, the Revd Dr James Walters – chaplain and senior lecturer in practice at LSE – highlights the legal work and perspective of William Stringfellow, an LSE alumnus who ‘took great […]

In 1920 the economist Edwin R Seligman wrote from Columbia University to Professor Herbert Foxwell, teaching at LSE recommending a former student, Bhimrao Ramji (BR) Ambedkar, and asking Foxwell to help him in his research. In November 1920 Foxwell wrote to the School Secretary, Mrs Mair:
“I find he has already taken his doctor’s degree & has only come here to […]