Lindley Fraser

Background

Fraser was born in Edinburgh, the son of Norman Fraser, a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland, and of his wife, Cecilia Craigie Fraser.

Education

He was educated first at George Watson"s College, Edinburgh, and when the family moved to Liverpool in 1913 he went to the Liverpool Institute High School.

Career

Early years

In 1925 he was elected treasurer of the Oxford Union, becoming librarian and then president the following year. In 1926 and 1927 he was appointed to visiting fellowships at Princeton University and the Brookings School of Economics in Washington, District of Columbia, receiving a doctorate from the latter. Returning to Oxford in 1925 Fraser became fellow and praelector in economics at Queen"s College.

Many of his pupils later distinguished themselves.

Among them was the future prime minister, Harold Wilson. In 1932 Fraser married Elspet Mackenzie (b 1907/8), daughter of Doctor Samuel Ridley Mackenzie of Montreal.

They had two daughters. In 1935, Fraser was appointed Jaffrey professor of political economy at Aberdeen University.

During his time at Aberdeen he wrote Economic Thought and Language (1937), which gave a systematic analysis of the terminology of economic analysis, and was translated into several languages.

Broadcaster

Aberdeen University reluctantly granted him leave of absence and he began broadcasting for the British Broadcasting Corporation in February 1940. By the end of the war he had become "a national institution" to his German audience. Believing that the British Broadcasting Corporation"s German service could play a valuable part in the rebuilding of postwar Germany, Fraser resigned his chair at Aberdeen in 1945.

He was appointed director of the German service in 1947 and head of German programmes in February 1948.

His biographer, Richard Hewlett, wrote that Fraser"s frequent visits to the Federal Republic of Germany and his continued, regular broadcasts "made him widely known and respected throughout the German-speaking countries of Europe."

Fraser was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1958. He died of lung cancer in London in 1963 at the age of 58.

Achievements

• After an academic career, during which he successfully switched from classics to economics, holding university posts in America, England and Scotland, Fraser was recruited by the British Broadcasting Corporation to join, and later head, its German service, in which his broadcasts to listeners in Nazi Germany won him a large following. From there he won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first class degree in classics. He spoke German fluently and clearly but with a distinct Edinburgh accent which won him a large following among listeners in Nazi Germany.