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John Maynard Keynes
Baron Keynes of Tilton
(1883–1946)

Biographical

Baron Keynes of Tilton, 1942
Companion of the Bath 1917

An economist, philosopher, and journalist, Keynes is best known for his contributions to economic theory. He was educated at Eton, and at Cambridge, where he was influenced by the economist Alfred Marshall who persuaded him to shift his interest from mathematics and the classics to politics and economics. He became a member of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists which included Virginia Wolf and Lytton Strachey. After he completed his degree in 1905 Keynes was employed at the India Office in Whitehall between 1906 and 1908, but returned to Cambridge teaching economics. He was editor of the Economic Journal from 1912 to 1945, and from 1913 the post included secretary of the Royal Economic Society. From 1913 to 1914 he was a member of the Royal Commission on Indian Finance and Currency, and from 1915 he worked for the Treasury. Keynes was put in charge of financial affairs for the Paris Peace Conference in 1918. He moved to Paris as the chief Treasury representative in January of the following year, but resigned in 1919 due to his strong disagreements with proposed policies to be imposed upon Germany. In response he published his theories and conclusions in The Economic Consequences of the Peace that year which gained him international notice. In the meantime, Keynes had become a successful investor and became a financial advisor to prominent figures. He was appointed chairman of the National Mutual Life Assurance Society in 1921. In 1922 he dedicated himself to journalism, firstly as guest editor of a series of supplements on the economic and commercial reconstruction in Europe for the Manchester Guardian. He also wrote for The Times and many other papers, and became chairman of the Athenaeum in 1923, and of The Nation. He had also become bursar of King's College, Cambridge. In 1925 Keynes married the Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, and their marriage was a great success, but childless. He soon afterwards took a lease of Tilton on the Sussex downs near Lewes. He also became active again in the Liberal Party, and over the years, was appointed member to a number of committees and consulting roles including the Macmillan committee in 1929 (of which he became its dominant figure), member of a consultative council to the chancellor in 1940, working at the Treasury, and soon joining the chancellor's budget committee which lead to other roles. His last major role was his negotiation of the 1945 loan from America and Canada to Britain. His other notable publications include The End of Laissez- Faire, 1926, and A Treatise on Money, 1930.

Place of birth: Cambridge
Place of marriage: St Pancras, London
Place of death: Firle, Sussex
Place of burial: ashes scattered on the Downs at Tilton, Sussex

Son of John Neville Keynes and Florence Brown, he married Lydia Lopokova in 1925, and had no issue.