Marjorie Deane

Marjorie Deane was born in 1914 in Manchester.[1] She was educated there at Withington Girls' School, followed by a degree in mathematics at London University.[1]

During the Second World war, Deane worked as a statistician for the Admiralty, where she reported to the poet John Betjeman, who would become a friend.[1]

Deane worked for The Economist from 1947 to 1989, and in the magazine's obituary of Deane, she was described as "the backbone of The Economist's financial coverage".[2] She was initially hired as a statistician, and although The Economist were relatively enlightened employers, this did not extend to equal pay in her earlier years; according to the editor Geoffrey Crowther, "You can hire a first-rate woman for the price of a second-rate man".[1]

Deane retired from The Economist aged 75, but continued working on a consultancy basis for various employers, and published a book aged 80 with the journalist Robert Pringle, entitled, The Central Banks.[1]

Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has called Deane "a pathbreaker for female financial journalists".[1]

In 2006, Deane was awarded an MBE, and said to the Queen: "I gather you don't much like us journalists, Ma’am", to which the Queen replied that financial journalists were all right.[1]

She died on 2 October 2008, at the age of 94.[2]

In 1998, she put £1 million towards establishing up a foundation to encourage young financial journalists, and most of her estate was added to The Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation.[1][3]

• The Central Banks (with Robert Pringle, 1994)[1]

• The Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation