K. S. Isles

Keith Sydney Isles (4 August 1902 – 18 June 1977) was an Australian economist, academic and university administrator.

History

Isles was a son of Tasmanian farmer Sydney Henry Isles and his wife Margaret Ellen Isles, née Knight.[1] He grew up with his parents in Spring Valley, Oatlands, Tasmania

Isles was educated at Hobart State High School and the University of Tasmania under Professor D. B. Copland, later Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at Melbourne University.[2] He joined the Tasmanian Education Department and taught there for a few years before accepting an appointment to teach (and coach football) at St Peter's College, Adelaide, while continuing his studies at the University of Adelaide.[1] In 1925 he received his Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Tasmania, and in the same year won the University of Adelaide's Tinline Scholarship.

He went to Cambridge University, where he studied under Keynes, and graduated MA and MSc.

From 1929 to 1931 he was a research fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, and admitted to the prestigious Keynes Club. His work won him a Wrenbury Scholarship in 1930 and the Adam Smith Prize in 1932.

In 1931 he was appointed Lecturer in Economics at the University of Edinburgh.

He was in 1937 appointed Professor of Economics at Swansea University, being highly commended by John Maynard Keynes, then at King's College, Cambridge, and by D. H. Robertson, of Trinity College, Cambridge.[2]

He was appointed to the Chair of Economics, University of Adelaide, in November 1938. In 1942 he was seconded to the wartime Commonwealth Rationing Commission as an economic adviser, and appointed temporary lieutenant-colonel in the Australian Army to provide economic advice. He was a member with Sidney Crawford and half-a-dozen diverse people of influence in the liberal South Australian think tank "Common Cause", which discussed post-war reconstruction.

In 1945 he left Adelaide for Belfast, where he had been appointed Professor of Economics, and Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Queen's University, Belfast.

He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania in November 1956,[3] succeeding the ineffectual Torleiv Hytten, and served from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1967."Timeline: Professor Keith Isles". University of Tasmania. Retrieved 6 March 2018.

Sydney Sparkes Orr, who had been appointed, on the basis of falsified documents, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tasmania, in 1952 was sacked in 1955 for allegedly having sexual relations with a female undergraduate student, a celebrated and controversial case at the time. Orr sued for wrongful dismissal, and after having lost, appealed. Orr had a great number of supporters, and a great deal was published on both sides of the argument. In an effort to clear the air, though having had no part in the sacking, Isles published a leaflet entitled Dismissal of Sydney Sparkes Orr by the University of Tasmania setting out the University's case, and was in 1961 sued by Orr for defamation, claiming £50,000 in damages as he had been unable to find employment for five years.[4]

Recognition

He was in 1967 conferred CMG[5]

Bibliography
  • Isles, K. S., (1929), Wages Policy and the Price Level. his MSc thesis.
  • Isles, K. S. and Williams, B. R. (1941), The Truth About Compulsory Savings
  • Isles, K. S. and Cuthbert, Norman (1957) An Economic Survey of Northern Ireland

Family

Isles married Irene Francis Clayton ( – ) at Jericho, Tasmania, near Oatlands, on 4 September 1926. They had a daughter in Cambridge on 18 September 1928

References
  1. A. J. Hagger, 'Isles, Keith Sydney (1902–1977)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/isles-keith-sydney-10595/text18823, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 6 March 2018.
  2. "A Distinguished Australian". The Examiner (Tasmania). XCVI (114). Tasmania, Australia. 23 July 1937. p. 7. Retrieved 6 March 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. "Professor Isles For Hobart". The Canberra Times. 31 (9, 024). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 24 November 1956. p. 1. Retrieved 6 March 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. "'No Confidence' In Justice Of Tasmania". The Canberra Times. 36 (10, 092). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 8 December 1961. p. 18. Retrieved 6 March 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. "The Commonwealth and State List in Full". The Canberra Times. 41 (11, 575). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 2 January 1967. p. 6. Retrieved 6 March 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
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