ABSTRACT
Joan Robinson the economist is inseparable from the complex person that she was. A strong woman, who as a teacher could make her men students cry themselves to sleep in despair, who as a colleague could cause some of the world's leading economists to tremble with rage, she was never a feminist. She expressed deep sympathy for the working class, but she was sometimes a critic of the Labour Party. Joan's family background, her education in economics at Cambridge, and the changing times through which she lived were important factors in molding her views and personality. Joan Violet Maurice was born in 1903 in Surrey into an upper-middle-class family. Joan's family had many ties to Cambridge University. The progress and achievements of a Cambridge university student are catalogued and printed regularly in the Cambridge University Reporter. It was recorded in June 1923 that Joan Violet Maurice was the only person to place Class-I in the Intercollegiate Examination in Economics.
