Colleagues and former students have paid tribute to the life and work of Andrew Glyn, a radical and influential economics Fellow at Corpus Christi College, who died from a brain tumour on 22nd December 2007, aged 64.Born on June 30th 1943, the son of John Glyn, the 6th Baron Wolverton and a wealthy banker, he attended Eton and New College, Oxford. Despite a privileged family and educational background, Glyn remained a life-long political radical and was regarded as the foremost Marxist economist of his generation.Before he was chosen as the first ever tutorial Fellow in Economics at Corpus in 1969, Glyn worked from 1964-66 as an economic advisor to Harold Wilson’s Labour government.In the eighties, he collaborated closely with the National Union of Mineworkers throughout the 1984-5 strike, producing a series of incisive critiques of the economic foundations for the Thatcherite policy on pit closures.His last book, Capitalism Unleashed (2006), acknowledged the resilience of Western capitalism but continued to warn of its socially destabilising consequences. Writing in the Guardian, Cabinet Office Minister and former student Ed Miliband remembered his strong views and his “deep commitment to a fairer and more just society.” He said, “While Andrew was an analyst, he did not want simply to understand the world, he wanted it to change.”Glyn was also known as a great jazz enthusiast, reportedly telling one student, “The three greatest men who ever lived were Lenin, Trotsky and Charlie Parker. Not necessarily in that order.” He is survived by his wife Wendy Carlin and four children from his two marriages.His funeral took place in the College hall on 4th January, attended by family and friends, fellow economists, colleagues at Corpus, as well as current and former students. Amongst them were David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and his brother, Ed. Reflecting on Mr. Glyn’s contribution to the University, Corpus President Tim Lankester told some 300 mourners that Andrew Glyn “represented the very best amongst Oxford tutors.”He said, “He was loved and revered by those he taught. He gave his students the tools, from a variety of economic traditions, with which to question and analyse. He didn’t try to impose his own views, even in the early days when his economic ideas were, shall we say, less rounded. No-one used the tutorial more effectively in encouraging students to think clearly and critically.”by James Stafford
