A Blackett in High Finance

Sir Basil Phillott Blackett, KCB KCSI, another great-nephew of Edmund Thomas Blacket, was a senior civil servant and an expert on international finance. As First Controller of Finance at the Treasury he was largely responsible for the British economy in the difficult years of 1919-1922. In the latter year he went to India as finance member of the Viceroy’s council and over the next five years proved to be an outstanding financial administrator, introducing several major reforms. In 1928 he left the Treasury for the City and became a director of the Bank of England. He was a strong proponent of the “sterling area” and popularised the phrase. He was a keen student of Blackett genealogy.

The Blackett Observatory at his old school, Marlborough College, is named after him, (see A Lunar Blackett.) He was killed in a motor accident in Belgium in 1935. There is a memorial window to him in the North Transept of Durham Cathedral.