Shirley Robin Letwin (17 February 1924 – 19 June 1993) was an American academic who lived in London.[1] [2]
Shirley Robin Letwin was born in Chicago, Illinois.[1] [2] Her family were Jewish immigrants from Kiev.[3] [1] [2] She graduated from the University of Chicago, where she was taught by Friedrich Hayek, and did graduate studies at the London School of Economics.[1] [2] She decided to move to England permanently in 1965.
She taught at LSE and at Peterhouse, a college of the University of Cambridge, in the 1970s,[2] a time when the college was a haunt of radical conservative thinkers focused loosely around Maurice Cowling. She wrote many books about conservatism, and one about Anthony Trollope.[4]
She met Margaret Thatcher through her friend Keith Joseph, and started working for her.[1] She also worked for the Centre for Policy Studies.[1] She was also close to Michael Oakeshott and later became his literary executor.[1] [2] In 1987, she gave a lecture at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia.[2]
She was married to William Letwin.[1] They had one son, Oliver Letwin.[1] [2] [5] [6] They lived in London, in a house overlooking Regent's Park.[1] She was an avid tennis player, and once played with Milton Friedman despite the fact that it was snowing.[1]