Biography

Eileen Edna le Poer Power was born on 9 Jan 1889, the oldest of three sisters. She was educated at High Schools in Bournemouth and Oxford, and at Girton College 1907-10, gaining a First in History. She won the Gilchrist Scholarship to study at the école des Chartes in Paris 1910-11, and the Shaw studentship at the London School of Economics 1911-13. In 1913 she returned to Girton as director of studies in history, and remained there until 1920, when she obtained the Kahn Travelling Fellowship, and made a journey round the world. In 1921 she was appointed lecturer in economic history at the London School of Economics, and remained there until her death, becoming a Reader in 1924 and Professor of Economic History in 1931. She continued her contacts with Girton by giving courses of lectures there in the summer. She married Michael Postan in 1937 and died on 8 August 1940. Michael Moissey (`Munia') Postan was born in Bessarabia in September 1899, came to England in 1920 and studied at the London School of Economics from 1921, gaining his B.Sc. in 1924 and an M.A. in 1926 with a thesis on credit in medieval trade. He was Eileen Power's research assistant from 1926, and held lectureships at University College London 1927-31 and at LSE 1931-35. In 1935 he became Lecturer in Economic History at Cambridge University and Fellow of Peterhouse, and in 1938 was made Professor of Economic History, retiring in 1965. He married Eileen Power in 1937, edited her Ford Lectures for publication after her death, and later published some of her essays as Medieval Women (1975). During World War II he served in the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and as Official Historian of Munitions. He was editor of The Economic History Review 1934-60, and of the Cambridge Economic History of Europe. In 1960 he helped found the International Economic History Association. He married Lady Cynthia Keppel in 1944 and had two sons. He was knighted in 1980 and died on 12 December 1981.

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