Eileen Power

Eileen Edna Le Poer Power (9 January 1889 – 8 August 1940) was a British economic historian and medievalist.

Early life and education

Eileen Power was the eldest daughter of Philip Ernest Le Poer Power (born 1860), a stockbroker, and Mabel Grindley, née Clegg (1866–1903). and was born at Altrincham, Cheshire (now part of Greater Manchester) in 1889. She was a sister of Rhoda Power, the children's writer and broadcaster, and Beryl Millicent Le Poer Power, a civil servant (1891–1974). When she was three her father was arrested for fraud and the family moved to Bournemouth to live with Benson Clegg (Power's grandfather). After her mother died of tuberculosis when Power was only 14, she moved to Oxford with her two sisters to live with her aunt. Power was educated at the Oxford High School for Girls, then matriculated at Girton College, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne.

Power was a granddaughter of the Rev. Philip Bennett Power. Philip Power, a prolific writer of evangelical tracts, was originally from Waterford, Ireland.

Career

Power was Director of Studies in History at Girton College, University of Cambridge (1913–21), Lecturer in Political Science at the London School of Economics (1921–24), and Reader of the University of London (1924–31). In 1910, she was awarded the Gilchrist research fellowship and studied at the University of Paris and the École des Chartes. From 1922 until her death in 1940 she lived in Mecklenburgh Square, on the fringes of Bloomsbury.

In 1931, she became the second woman to be appointed to the Chair of Economic History at the London School of Economics (LSE).