Cecil Harry Thompson, OBE, economist, was born on April 29, 1918. He died on May 21, 2004, aged 86.
Appointed to the University of Witwatersrand in 1948, the economist Cecil Harry Thompson soon found himself advising for the Government of Southern Rhodesia. Shortly afterwards, he became head of the economic section of the Prime Minister Lord Malvern’s office, and remained in the post until 1960 during the Government of the next leader, Roy Welensky. Appointed OBE for his work, he then moved to Washington, where he became an economist for the World Bank, in charge of advising on Middle Eastern and North African projects and, later, deputy director of the organisation’s mission in Indonesia. All the while, he pursued a flourishing career as a lecturer in Britain, America and Africa.
He was born in Birmingham, and took both his degree and his masters in economics from Birmingham University. In 1940 he joined the Royal Army Service Corps and served in all the 8th Army campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France after El Alamein. He was mentioned in dispatches, and after VE Day he was promoted major and seconded to the Malaysian Government as an economist.
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After a brief spell teaching at Leeds, he moved to South Africa. While there, he was closely involved in the construction of the Kariba Dam, the vast hydro-electric scheme on the Zambezi River on the border between present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe. With H.W.Woodruff he had published a book in 1953 on the economic development of the region which contributed much to the success of the Kariba project. He attended Commonwealth finance ministers’ meetings back in the UK, and was also present at the Commonwealth prime ministers’ conference in 1952 when the convertibility of sterling was discussed for the first time.
At the end of his time in Rhodesia, aware perhaps that life for an Englishman might become difficult, he moved to Washington and the World Bank. His early responsibilities were for Europe, Africa and Australasia, but later he was appointed chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa. The post of deputy director of the mission in Indonesia was his last permanent appointment, but he continued to work as a consultant for some years after leaving.
He lectured at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for four years, and was a research fellow at Exeter University, where he ran courses on development and international economics with special reference to the Middle East. Occasional seminars followed at Cambridge, Leeds and Newcastle on agriculture and international aid, and at the end of the Seventies he was on the staff at Columbia University in New York.An appointment to the chair of economics at Harare University in 1977 ought to have been the crowning achievement of his academic career, but by then British presence was becoming unwelcome in the region. He left the post after a year.
He remained energetic well into his retirement, which he divided between Florida and the UK. Despite his experience of living in far-flung corners of the globe, he was conservative in his tastes, eschewing “messed-about” food and living quite simply. But he would be seen playing football with his grandsons into his eighties, and liked nothing better than a lively argument on the political issues of the day.