Mervyn Allister King, Baron King of Lothbury, (born 30 March 1948), is a British economist and public servant, who was Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013. Emeritus Professor of the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

and Chairman of the Philharmonia since 2020, Lord King serves as President of

Marylebone Cricket Club The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's, Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London, England. The club was the governing body of cricket from 1788 to 1989 and retain ...

for 2024/25. Born in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, King was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School,

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

, before going up to read economics at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, and

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. Elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

, working as a researcher on the Cambridge Growth Project he then taught at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

and MIT, before becoming a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of economics at the

. He joined the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

in 1990 as a non-executive director, and became the chief economist in 1991. In 1998, he was promoted deputy governor of the Bank and a member of the Group of Thirty. King was appointed as Governor of the Bank of England in 2003, succeeding Sir Eddie George. Most notably, he oversaw the Bank during the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

and ensuing

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

. King retired from office as Governor in June 2013, being succeeded by Dr Mark Carney. Created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...

in July 2013, Lord King entered the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

as a crossbencher. From 2014 until 2022 he was professor of economics and law, a joint chair at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Stern School of Business The Leonard N. Stern School of Business (also NYU Stern, Stern School of Business, or simply Stern) is the business schools, business school of New York University, a private university, private research university based in New York City. Founded ...

and School of Law.

Early life and career

Mervyn King is a son of Eric King, a railway porter who retrained as a geography teacher after the War, and Kathleen (''née'' Passingham). Born at Chesham Bois in Buckinghamshire, he was educated at Warstones Junior School and Wolverhampton Grammar School in Staffordshire, before going up to read economics at King's College (graduating in 1969 with a first-class BA degree, proceeding MA in 1973) and

, then (as Kennedy Scholar) at

.Bank of England profile
; accessed 2 March 2011. Whilst at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, King was Treasurer of the Cambridge University Liberal Club in 1968. While at Harvard, King's academic advisor and mentor was American economist Martin Feldstein whom he describes as "a very important influence." Elected a

of St John's College in 1972, he worked as a researcher on the Cambridge Growth Project with future Nobel Laureate Sir Richard Stone and Terry Barker at the University of Cambridge. From 1977 until 1984, he taught at the

and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard then Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he shared an office with then-Assistant Professor

Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Federal Reserve, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Insti ...

. King says that while at Birmingham, he was influenced by the Austrian School of Economics. In October 1984 he was appointed Professor of Economics at the

where he founded the Financial Markets Group. In 1981, he was one of the 364 university economists who signed a letter to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' condemning Chancellor Geoffrey Howe's 1981 Budget.

Bank of England

King joined the Bank in March 1991 as chief economist and executive director, after being a non-executive director from 1990 to 1991. He was appointed Deputy Governor in 1997, taking post on 1 June 1998. In the same year, King became a member of the Group of Thirty. An

ex-officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, or council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term ''List of Latin phrases (E)#ex officio, ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the off ...

member of the Bank's interest-rate setting Monetary Policy Committee since its inception in 1997, King took part in its monthly meetings. Succeeding Sir Eddie George as Governor on 1 July 2003, he became the first incumbent Governor of the Bank of England to receive an

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

with

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

. While Governor, King was responsible for putting Matthew Boulton and

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was f ...

on the £50 note,

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or ...

on the £20 note, and

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

on the £5 note.

2008 financial crisis

After becoming governor, King explained that

policy was "similar to that of the Federal Reserve" under Alan Greenspan. Greenspan described his approach as "mitigat ngthe fallout rom the bursting of a bubblewhen it occurs". King agreed with Alan Greenspan that, "It is hard to identify asset price 'bubbles'." Other warnings about the UK housing market followed, including from the

National Institute of Economic and Social Research The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), established in 1938, is Britain's oldest independent economic research institute. The institute is a London-based independent UK registered charity that carries out academic researc ...

in 2004 and the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

in 2005. King noted the "unusually large" difference between the

RPIX {{short description, Measure of inflation RPIX is a measure of inflation in the United Kingdom, equivalent to the all items Retail Price Index (RPI) excluding mortgage interest payments. History It was the UK's target rate of inflation from October ...

and CPI at the beginning of 2004 (the latter does not include house prices as part of its inflation measure, whilst the former does), and, six months later, that UK house prices had risen "to levels which are well above what most people would regard as sustainable in the longer term", having increased by more than 20% over the preceding year and more than 100% over the preceding five. In 2005, ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'' described the run-up in UK house prices as forming part of "the biggest bubble in history", and, by October 2007—when the UK housing bubble was at its peak — the IMF was reporting that the UK housing market was "overpriced by up to 40 per cent". As noted by the OECD, house-price volatility "can raise systemic risks as the banking and mortgage sectors are vulnerable to fluctuations in house prices due to their exposure to the housing market." Dean Baker in ''

The American Prospect ''The American Prospect'' is a daily online and bimonthly print American political and public policy magazine dedicated to American modern liberalism and Progressivism in the United States, progressivism. Based in Washington, D.C., ''The America ...

'' said the failure by Greenspan and King to tackle their respective countries' housing market bubbles resulted in catastrophic "fallout" when the bubbles burst, resulting in both countries' worst recessions since the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. UK–US inaction may be compared to action taken by China and Australia. Another result of the financial crisis was King's rejection of the Bank's devout focus on price stability, or inflation targeting, a policy that was instituted after Black Wednesday in 1992 and continued by King after becoming Governor in 2003. One of the two early lessons King drew from crisis were that "price stability does not guarantee stability of the economy as a whole" and that "the instruments used to pursue financial stability are in need of sharpening and refining." The 2012 Financial Services Bill, in transferring the majority of macroprudential regulatory powers from the FSA to the Bank, granted the Financial Policy Committee (chaired by the Governor) the power to curb lending in booms, including placing limits on the public's access to mortgages. A former senior BoE official summed up the Bank's pre-crisis performance: "How can you look back with the benefit of hindsight and see it as a success? We were responsible for financial stability and we utterly failed to take any avoiding action against the greatest financial crisis in our lifetimes". David Blanchflower said that, even as late as the summer of 2008, King did not even see the financial crisis coming. In its review of Bank of England accountability, one of the major complaints of the Treasury Select Committee was the Bank's refusal to undertake an internal review of its performance during the financial crisis. Such a review would pose difficulties since evidence on how its most senior policymakers arrived at their decisions was destroyed as a matter of course. By contrast, the United States publishes the Federal Reserve's deliberations with a five-year lag, which have provided "the most detailed picture yet of how top officials at the central bank didn't anticipate the storm about to hit the U.S. economy and the global financial system." As in the UK, the US central bank's failure led to a new regulatory framework, the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Response to crisis

King argued that when the financial crisis and bank meltdown hit in autumn 2008, he and other Western central bankers "prevented a Great Depression", in part by cutting interest rates to virtually zero. ''The Economist'' agreed, saying that he "has a point". A 2012 review of actions taken by Western central banks in the face of the crisis also supported King's claim. The bank has faced criticism, however, for the pace of the rate cuts, which took five months from the beginning of October 2008 to get down from 5.0% to 0.5%, where they remained for several years. After becoming only the second Bank of England Governor to speak to the TUC in its 142-year history, King conceded that people were "entitled to be angry" about unemployment and the bank bailout. King has been scathing about the banking sector since it crashed, especially its "breathtaking" £1 trillion bailout and its continuation of bonus awards in 2009, calling for a serious review of banking's structure and regulation. In a ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'' interview in March 2011, King said banks had "put profits before people", that failure to reform the sector could result in another financial crisis, and that traditional manufacturing industries have a more "moral" way of operating. In an interview with ''

'' in March 2012, he said that the banks are still in denial about the "very real and wholly understandable" anger that is felt at their behaviour, Bankers have not been happy with his excoriating views and insistence on avoiding

moral hazard In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs associated with that risk, should things go wrong. For example, when a corporation i ...

, but King insists that " rket discipline can't apply to everyone except banks", pinpointing the banks' sense of grievance on their finding it "very, very difficult to face up to the failure of their banking model". Before the end of King's governorship in 2013, some top UK banks warned that unless a less "hostile" figure were found as a successor, they could move abroad. On 26 November 2012, Mark Carney was named as King's successor.

Banks bailout

King was accused of refusing funding to the Northern Rock Bank, precipitating a run on that bank, a situation not seen in the UK since 1914.. King later said that it had been the Chancellor

Alistair Darling Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, (28 November 1953 – 30 November 2023) was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under prime minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party ...

, not he, who had the final word on refusing the necessary help to Northern Rock. In hi
review
of King's tenure as Governor, ''Times'' journalist David Wighton wrote: In his memoirs,

was critical of King for emphasising

—the doctrine of not saving the banks from the consequences of their own mistakes—instead of rescuing the banks by pumping money into them as the banking-system meltdown occurred in autumn 2008. Despite his refusal to give funding to the retail banks, he retained his job, and submitted in defence to a Treasury Select Committee (New York Times/Financial Times, 20 September 2007) that his actions were on the basis that the

was the "

lender of last resort In public finance, a lender of last resort (LOLR) is a financial entity, generally a central bank, that acts as the provider of liquidity to a financial institution which finds itself unable to obtain sufficient liquidity in the interbank ...

" but subsequently supported moves to provide funding to those banks which had been nationalised or partly nationalised.

Political interventions

King's highly-critical Mansion House Speech in 2009 allegedly helped to bolster the Conservatives in the run-up to the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

. King called for the break-up of the country's biggest banks, as well as arguing that, unless the Bank were given more active, interventionist powers to ensure financial stability, it would be like a church: able to "do no more than issue sermons or organise burials." King later advised a rebalancing of the economy, increased saving, and an "elimination of the structural deficit". In November 2009, he told MPs that the then Labour government's intention of halving the deficit over the next five years was insufficient. In May 2010, just days after the Coalition government was formed, King said he had spoken to Chancellor George Osborne and supported his plans to cut spending by a further £6 billion within the 2010–11 fiscal year. The Liberal Democrats did not need to be talked around to agreeing to the severity of the cuts. In November 2010, it was revealed that some senior staff at the Bank of England (one of them was David Blanchflower) were uncomfortable with King's endorsement of the government's public spending cuts, accusing him of overstepping the boundary between monetary and fiscal policy. King's support for the government's cuts was in spite of concerns within the bank that cutting spending so rapidly could derail the UK's nascent economic-recovery. These revelations led to accusations of King being a "

coalition A coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political, military, or economic spaces. Formation According to ''A G ...

courtier" and of making "excessively political" interventions with regard to UK economic policy. The accusations were given greater weight after the December 2010 WikiLeaks Cablegate. As a result of the WikiLeaks disclosures and David Laws' account of the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition-talks, King was asked by the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee to explain why he was seemingly cited in the talks as backing Tory plans to introduce spending cuts this year. King insisted to the committee that "at no stage did I offer any advice on the composition of any measures designed to reduce the government deficit"; the committee implicitly accepted King's explanation of events as he is not even mentioned, let alone criticised, in their final report. According to George Osborne,

Gus O'Donnell Augustine Thomas O'Donnell, Baron O'Donnell, (born 1 October 1952) is a former British senior civil servant and economist, who between 2005 and 2011 (under three Prime Ministers) served as the Cabinet Secretary, the highest official in the Br ...

made an offer to have King brief the Tories and Lib Dems during the Coalition's formative talks; however, the parties suspected they "knew what he was going to say and . . . also thought it was more appropriate for our Treasury spokesmen to talk to him". King was criticised again in May 2012 on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, on the day before an election, after he expressed approval of Coalition austerity measures. In a speech to the European Parliament in Brussels in May 2011, King commented that the Bank of England was more concerned with the broader stability of the economy and banking sector than with inflation figures: "The economic consequences of high-level indebtedness now would become more severe if rates were to rise. It is the main reason why interest rates are so low." With regard to Project Merlin, King was critical of Chancellor Osborne's misleading figures, and correctly predicted in a "light plausibility check" that Merlin would be a failure. In March 2009, King said any plan for a second fiscal stimulus by the UK Government had to be done with caution. His Mansion House Speech in June 2009 criticised Chancellor

for resisting significant changes to the allocation of regulatory responsibilities between the FSA, the Treasury and the Bank, which would have given the BoE greater power to fulfil its role of ensuring economic stability. In January 2012, King received a letter from the Government's former chief scientific adviser Sir David King, Zac Goldsmith, former environment minister John Gummer (and 17 others) warning of the possibility of a carbon bubble. King agreed to an evaluation of the matter. The BoE's Financial Policy Committee, established to identify emerging bubbles in the financial system, agreed in March 2012 to ask Parliament for new policy tools to be used to prevent another financial crisis. King said that the FPC narrowed its choice of instruments to three—the power to ensure banks have countercyclical capital buffers, the ability to force banks to hold more capital against exposure to specific sectors judged risky, and the power to set leverage ratios—because it will be important to explain to parliament and the wider public why it is or is not using them. Late March 2019, he argued that the UK should leave without a deal in the wake of the UK's decision to leave the European Union, arguing that the economic consequences would be limited, and that the UK was well-prepared after six months of preparations.

Personal life

King's wife, Barbara Melander, is a Finnish interior designer and comes from the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. They married in a private ceremony at a church in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

in 2007. Lord King's favourite band is

ABBA ABBA ( ) were a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They are one of the most popular and successful musical groups of all time, and are one of the List ...

. A fan of Aston Villa F.C., King once arranged a game between Bank of England employees and ex-Villa players. He served on Villa's board of directors from February until April 2016, and then he, along with fellow board member former Football Association

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

David Bernstein, resigned in protest against owner Randy Lerner's stewardship of the club. In January 2024, King was named by Aston Villa as a member of the ''Honorary Anniversary Board'' ahead of the AVFC's 150th anniversary season. Marylebone Cricket Club Logo

King briefly found himself commentating on an Ashes Test Match for

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

's '' Test Match Special'' in 2005, while being interviewed by Simon Mayo. President of the cricket foundation Chance to Shine programme, which fosters competitive

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

state school A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in part by taxation and operated by the government of the state. State-f ...

s, Lord King is a member of the AELTC and MCC. In 2015, he became President of Worcestershire County Cricket Club and in May 2024, it was announced he would serve as President of the MCC from 1 October 2024 for a 12-month term. Awarded an

Honorary Doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

of Laws (Hon LLD) by Cambridge University in 2006, King also received an Honorary Doctorate of Literature (Hon DLitt) from Abertay University in July 2013. King has also been elected a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. In 2015, King was listed as the 11th most influential person in the Financial Centres International top 500.

Honours and arms

Honours

Appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours, Lord King was advanced as a Knight of the Garter on 23 April 2014. On 19 July 2013, King was created a

Life Peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...

for 'contributions to public service'. Lord King entered the

on 22 July 2013 as a crossbencher, taking the

title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify their generation, official position, military rank, professional or academic qualification, or nobility. In some languages, titles may be ins ...

Baron King of Lothbury, ''of Lothbury in the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

''. On 6 January 2016, King was commissioned a Deputy Lieutenant for

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

by the

Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...

, Viscount de L'Isle.

Coat of arms

Books

King's books include: *''The British Tax System'', (1979, and four subsequent editions), with John Kay. *'' The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking and the Future of the Global Economy'', (2016). *''Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future'', (2020), with John Kay.

References

External links

Bank Of England – Biography

BBC News – Biography

Debrett's People of Today
* {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Mervyn 1948 births Living people Academics of the London School of Economics Academics of the University of Birmingham Academics of the University of Cambridge Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge Crossbench life peers Deputy governors of the Bank of England Deputy lieutenants of Kent English bankers English economists Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Econometric Society Governors of the Bank of England Group of Thirty Harvard University alumni Monetary economists People educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School People from Wolverhampton Honorary Fellows of the London School of Economics National Bureau of Economic Research Aston Villa F.C. directors and chairmen Life peers created by Elizabeth II Knights of the Garter Presidents of the Marylebone Cricket Club Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire