W. Arthur Lewis

Sir William Arthur Lewis (23 January 1915 – 15 June 1991) was a Saint Lucian economist and the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University.

Lewis was known for his contributions in the field of economic development.

When Ghana (where in 1929 his eldest brother Stanley had settled) gained independence in 1957, Lewis was appointed as the country's first economic advisor.

After finishing school when he was 14 years old, Lewis worked as a clerk, while waiting to be old enough to sit the examination for a government scholarship to a British university, which would be in 1932.

During this time he began a lifelong friendship with Eric Williams, the future first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

Lewis's initial career choice was to become an engineer, "but this seemed pointless since neither the government nor the white firms would employ a black engineer," as he later said: "Eventually I decided to study business administration, planning to return to St. Lucia for a job in the municipal service or in private trade. I would simultaneously study law to fall back on if nothing administrative turned up."

At the age of 18, he earned the government scholarship to attend the London School of Economics (LSE), becoming the first black individual to gain acceptance there.

While enrolled to study for a Bachelor of Commerce degree ("which offered accounting, business management, commercial law and a little economics and statistics") in 1933, he would achieve similar success as he did at grade school.

While at LSE, he studied under John Hicks, Arnold Plant, Lionel Robbins, and Friedrich Hayek.

After Lewis graduated in 1937 with first-class honours, LSE gave him a scholarship to read for a PhD in industrial economics, under the supervision of Arnold Plant.

Lewis would become the first black faculty member at LSE: in 1938 he was given a teaching appointment, and in 1939 was made an Assistant Lecturer, continuing to work as a member of the LSE staff until 1948.

Labour in the West Indies: The Birth of a Worker's Movement, first published by the Fabian Society in 1939, was an account of the 1930s labour movement in the Caribbean.

It remained the only work published on the Caribbean-wide movement and the Labour Rebellions in the English-speaking Caribbean for decades.

In 1947, Lewis married Gladys Jacobs, and that year he was selected as a lecturer at the Victoria University of Manchester, and moved there with his family, becoming Britain's first black lecturer.

In 1947, Lewis married Grenada-born Gladys Jacobs, with whom he had two daughters, Elizabeth and Barbara.

In 1948, at the age of 33, he was made a full professor.

Lewis published in 1954 what was to be his most influential development economics article, "Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour" (Manchester School).

He taught at Manchester until 1957.

During this period, he developed some of his most important concepts about the patterns of capital and wages in developing countries.

He particularly became known for his contributions to development economics, of great interest as former colonies began to gain independence from their European colonizers.

Lewis served as an economic advisor to numerous African and Caribbean governments, including Nigeria, Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Barbados.

He helped draw up its first Five-Year Development Plan (1959–1963).

In 1959, Lewis returned to the Caribbean region when appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1962.

In 1963, he was knighted by the British government for his achievements and for his contributions to economics.

That year, he was also appointed Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University – the first black instructor to be given a full professorship – and subsequently held the position of James Madison Professor of Political Economics.

In 1966, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

He also served from 1966 to 1973 he served as Chancellor of the University of Guyana.

Lewis helped to establish the Caribbean Development Bank and in 1970 he was selected as its first president, serving in that capacity until 1973.

The book was republished by John La Rose and Sarah White at New Beacon Books in February 1978.

Lewis is now characterised as "among the earliest proponents of Reparations for the former West Indies for Britain's colonial wrongs" because of the ideas he put forward in this work.

In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Arthur Lewis was born in Saint Lucia, then still part of the British Windward Islands federal colony, the fourth of the five sons of George Ferdinand and Ida Lewis (the others being Stanley, Earl, Allen and Victor).

His parents had migrated from Antigua shortly after the turn of the century.

George Lewis died when Arthur was seven years old and his brothers aged from five to 17, leaving Ida to raise her five children alone.

Arthur was a gifted student and was promoted two classes ahead of his age.

Lewis received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979, sharing it with Theodore Schultz, "for their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries".

Lewis worked at Princeton for the next two decades, teaching generations of students until his retirement in 1983.

Lewis died on 15 June 1991 in Bridgetown, Barbados, aged 76.

He was buried in the grounds of the St. Lucian community college named in his honour.