Evan Durbin

Evan Frank Mottram Durbin (1 March 1906 – 3 September 1948) was a British economist and left-wing politician, whose writings combined a belief in central economic planning with a conviction that the price mechanism of markets was indispensable.

The historian David Kynaston has described Durbin as 'the Labour Party's most interesting thinker of the 1940s and arguably of the twentieth century'.

Early life

Durbin was born in 1906, the son of a Baptist minister. He was educated at Plympton and Exmouth Elementary Schools; Heles School, Exeter; Taunton School; and New College, Oxford. At Oxford he studied zoology, followed by PPE, and became one of what Ben Pimlott described as 'the "Cole group" of distinguished young socialists'. He befriended Hugh Gaitskell (later to become leader of the Labour Party 1955–63) during the General Strike of 1926, when he undertook public speaking tasks on behalf of the strikers in and around Oxford, and Gaitskell acted as his driver. In 1929, he was awarded a Ricardo scholarship to study economics at University College, London, where Gaitskell was already on the teaching staff and their friendship, which lasted until Durbin's death, cemented itself.