Google on Thursday honoured economist Sir W Arthur Lewis with a special doodle.
On this day in 1979, Lewis was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his pioneering work to model the economic forces that impact developing countries.
Today’s Google Doodle has been illustrated by Manchester-based guest artist Camilla Ru.
Who is Sir W Arthur Lewis?
Sir Lewis was also the first Black faculty member at the London School of Economics (LSE), first Black person to hold a chair in a British university (at Manchester University), and the first Black person to receive full professorship at Princeton University in the UK.
Sir Lewis was born in Castries, Saint Lucia, then still part of the British Windward Islands federal colony to George and Ida Lewis. His parents had migrated from Antigua shortly after the turn of the century.
After graduating, Lewis’ initial career choice was to become an engineer. However, he chose economics because the governments and companies of the West Indies, such as Saint Lucia, refused to hire blacks.
The British government knighted Lewis in 1963. He died on 15 June 1991 in Bridgetown, Barbados.
