David Bensusan-Butt
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David Bensusan-Butt (born Colchester 24 July 1914, died London 25 March 1994) was an English economist who spent much of his career in Australia.
[edit] Background and education
A nephew of the French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, and the son of the first woman doctor to work in Essex, Bensusan-Butt was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and King's College, Cambridge, where he was a student of John Maynard Keynes and indexed Keynes's magnum opus, the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
[edit] Career
After a short period working for The Economist, Bensusan-Butt joined the civil service in 1938. Early in the Second World War he became private secretary to Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, then worked for Winston Churchill in the Prime Minister's office. He later joined the Royal Navy, serving on the minelayer H.M.S. Cyclone.
Following the war, Butt moved to the Economic Section of the Cabinet Office and later the Treasury. In 1949-1950 he was seconded to the Australian Prime Minister's Department, and he spent two periods of one year at Nuffield College, Oxford as a research fellow, in 1953-1954 and 1958-1959.
In 1962, he became a Professorial Fellow in the Research School of Pacific Studies of the Australian National University, remaining there for fifteen years. In 1975-1976 he was the most influential member of the Asprey Committee on tax reform, recommending a dramatic change from a complicated system of income taxes to a broad-based consumption tax.
In 1976, he retired to London, settling in part of the 17th century house at Stamford Brook of his uncle by marriage Camille Pissarro.
[edit] References
- David Bensusan-Butt, 1914-1994 by H. W. Arndt & R. M. Sundrum in The Economic Journal (vol. 105, no. 430, May, 1995, pp. 669-675)
- Obituary at The Independent, 5 April 1994
