Richard Charles Mills

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Richard Charles Mills OBE (born March 8, 1886 in Mooroopna , Victoria , Australia , † August 6, 1952 in Mosman ) was an Australian economist .

Live and act

Richard Charles Mills was born as the third child of the teacher Samuel Mills and his wife Sarah. Bray born. He attended Wesley College in Melbourne and studied at Queen's College of the University of Melbourne Law , History and Political Economy . In 1907 he was the first president of the student council. In 1909 he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws and in 1910 a Master of Laws . From 1909 he taught at Queen's College, in 1911 he became a lecturer in constitutional history , Roman law and law.

From 1912 to 1915 he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science , received the Hutchinson Medal and graduated with a thesis on Edward Gibbon Wakefield as a Doctor of Science . In 1915 he went to the British Expeditionary Force and was - after his marriage to Elizabeth Crawford on October 14, 1916 - used from 1916 to 1919 with the 61st siege battery in France and Belgium . In 1917 he was promoted to captain , in 1918 he was affected by the poison gas attacks on Armentières . In 1919 he returned to Melbourne, taught history at Queen's College and worked for the State royal commission on high prices of Victoria.

In 1921 he went to the University of Sydney as a lecturer . In 1922 he was appointed professor of economics and dean of the faculty . His research and teaching activities were particularly influenced by the teachings of John Maynard Keynes and Edwin Cannan . In the opinion of the Senate , under his leadership the faculty became "the leading business school in Australia". In 1924 he was actively involved in the founding of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand and was advisor to the publisher of its magazine The Economic Record. In 1930 he was a Carnegie visiting professor in the United States. From 1932 to 1936 he was advisor to the Treasury of New South Wales and the Prime Minister of New South Wales Bertram Stevens . From 1933 to 1941 he was chairman of the Appeals Committee of the University of Sydney, from 1934 to 1946 he was a member of the Senate.

In 1935 he was appointed to the state commission for banking ( Royal Commission into the banking system ) by the government of Joseph Lyons , among others with Ben Chifley . With the Commission's recommendations implemented well into the 1940s, Sydney James Butlin described Mills' involvement as "profound and far-reaching." Due to the friendly relationship with Ben Chifley, who was Minister of the Australian Federal Government from 1941, Mills was increasingly used in the public service. So he was 1941 to 1945 chairman of the Commonwealth Grants Commission and from 1942 chairman of the Commonwealth Commission for uniform taxation.

In 1945 he retired from the University of Sydney and became Chairman of the University Commission and Director of the newly formed Commonwealth Office of Education. In this role he was responsible for the administration of Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory and Australia's participation in UNESCO . In 1947 he became chairman of the interim commission that prepared the formation of the Australian National University . In 1949 he convinced Ben Chifley, who had become Prime Minister of Australia in 1945 , of the need for financial support for the study of former soldiers, so that a five-year scholarship program was adopted. In 1950 Mills became chairman of a special committee on funding for universities to expand teaching and research and academic standards. Robert Menzies saw the implementation of the recommendations of this committee as a focus of his second term as Prime Minister.

Richard Charles Mills lived in Mosman most of the time after his marriage. In the last years of his life he suffered from chronic kidney disease and arteriosclerosis ; he died on August 6, 1952 in Mosman Hospital. He left his wife Elizabeth, two sons and two daughters. The University of Sydney obituary emphasizes that he "served his university and his country to the limit". Since 1957 the university has been holding "RC Mills memorial lectures" in his honor.

Honors

Fonts

  • The Colonization of Australia (1829-42). The Wakefield Experiment in the Empire Building. Sidgwick and Jackson, London 1915. New edition: Sydney University Press, Sydney 1974, ISBN 0-424-00004-0 .
  • with Frederic C. Benham: Lectures on the principles of money, banking, and foreign exchange and their application to Australia. Sydney 1925.
  • Public finance in relation to commerce. 13th Joseph Fisher Lecture at the University of Adelaide on May 28, 1929. Hassel, Adelaide 1929.
  • Introduction to the new edition by Edward Gibbon Wakefield: A letter from Sydney. The principal town of Australasia and other writings of colonization. Dent. London 1929.
  • with Edward Ronald Walker: Money. Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1935. 13th edition 1952.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Report No. 2 of the State royal commission on high prices (PDF; 1.5 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Mills, Richard Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian economist
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Mooroopna , Victoria , Australia
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1952
Place of death Mosman