This lecture series was inaugurated in 1992 at the 21st West Indies Agricultural Economics Conference in memory of Sir Arthur Lewis and delivered by Professor Compton Bourne.

William Arthur Lewis (1915–1991) was born in St Lucia and was the first black academic at the London School of Economics with his first appointment in 1938. In 1979 Sir Arthur Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics for “pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries”.

The second lecture in the series was dedicated to the memory of Professor George Beckford (1934–1990) and was delivered by Professor C.Y. Thomas at the 22nd West Indies Agricultural Economics Conference in 1995.  George Beckford was a distinguished Economist known for his book “Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in the Plantation Economies of the Third World”.   Beckford taught Agricultural Economics at The UWI at St. Augustine from 1963, before he moved to the Mona campus in 1957.  He served as Professor of Economics there, until his passing in 1990. 

The third lecture was presented in Nassau, The Bahamas at the 23rd West Indies Conference in 2000, by Professor Vaughn Lewis, a nephew of Sir Arthur Lewis.  Over the years the Memorial Lecture has been delivered by several eminent Caribbean scholars.

Prof. Carlisle Pemberton

Editor, 2023