Randal Keynes
Randal Keynes | |
|---|---|
| Keynes in 2009 | |
| Born | Randal Hume Keynes (1948年07月29日)29 July 1948 |
| Died | 3 March 2023 (aged 74) |
| Education | Marlborough College |
| Alma mater | New College, Oxford (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Conservationist, author |
| Spouse | Zelfa Hourani |
| Children | Soumaya Keynes Skandar Keynes |
| Parent(s) | Richard Keynes Hon. Anne Adrian |
| Relatives |
|
| Family | Keynes |
Randal Hume Keynes, OBE, FLS (/ˈkeɪnz/ KAYNZ; 29 July 1948 – 3 March 2023) was a British conservationist, author, and great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.
Family background
[edit ]Keynes was born in Cambridge, England. He is the son of the Hon. Anne Pinsent (née Adrian) and physiologist Richard Keynes. His maternal grandparents were Hester Adrian, Baroness Adrian, mental health worker, and Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian, electrophysiologist and recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology. His paternal grandfather was the surgeon Geoffrey Keynes, brother to the economist John Maynard Keynes. Randal Keynes is the brother of two Cambridge professors, Simon (historian) and Roger (medical scientist).
Randal Keynes has two children with Zelfa Cecil Hourani, also from a prominent intellectual family, originally from Lebanon. Hourani's father, Cecil, was an advisor to the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, and his two brothers were Albert, a major historian of the Middle East, and George, philosopher, historian, and classicist. Randal and Zelfa's son, Skandar Keynes (born 1991), is a political advisor and former actor best known for his role as Edmund Pevensie in the Narnia films. Their daughter, Soumaya Keynes (born 1989), is an economics journalist and has hosted podcasts for The Economist and Financial Times.
Life and career
[edit ]Keynes was educated at Marlborough College and New College, Oxford, where he earned a degree in English with a concentration in Icelandic literature.[2] He was a distinguished supporter of Humanists UK.[3]
He campaigned successfully against the redevelopment of King's Cross station and for the preservation of the Caledonian Road neighbourhood in central London. He recalls one of the turning points as his persuasion of two members of the House of Lords to ask the government to guarantee the funding of the project; when the ministers declined to, the bill fell.[4]
The Darwin connection
[edit ]Keynes is the author of the intimate exploration of his famous ancestry, Annie's Box, subtitled Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution (2001), a book about the relationship between Darwin and his daughter Annie, whose early death deeply affected him.[5] The 2009 film Creation is based on this book.
He has taken a leading role in the campaign to have Down House, Darwin's former home, designated a World Heritage Site.[6]
He was the author of two Oxford Dictionary of National Biography articles on Anne Darwin and William Erasmus Darwin [7] in 2005.
Ancestry
[edit ]| Ancestors of Randal Keynes |
|---|
16. Dr. John Keynes 17. Anna Maynard Neville 18. Rev. John Brown 19. Ada Haydon Ford 20. Charles Darwin 10. George Darwin 21. Emma Wedgwood 5. Margaret Elizabeth Darwin 22. Charles Meredith du Puy 11. Maud du Puy 23. Ellen Reynolds 1. Randal Keynes 24. Emperor Adrian 12. Alfred Douglas Adrian 25. Selina Anne Douglas 26. Charles Howard Barton 13. Flora Lavinia Barton 27. Amelia Swaine 3. Hon. Anne Adrian 28. Richard Steele Pinsent 14. Hume Chancellor Pinsent 29. Catherine Agnes Ross 30. Rev. Richard Parker 31. Elizabeth Coffin |
See also
[edit ]References
[edit ]- ^ "FamilySearch.org" . Retrieved 7 July 2023.
- ^ Osland, Ruby (10 January 2024). "Randal Keynes Obituary". The Marlburian Club. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
- ^ "Distinguished Supporters". British Humanist Association . Retrieved 26 April 2012.
- ^ The Secret History of Our Streets, a 2012 BBC and Open University co-production, both a series of six-hour-long television programmes (in which he is interviewed in episode 2, "Caledonian Road") and also a book.
- ^ Turney, Jon (8 June 2002). "Darwin's lost daughter". The Guardian . Retrieved 18 February 2008.
- ^ Boxer, Sarah (18 November 2005). "An Image of Darwin, Carrying on His Work". The New York Times . Retrieved 18 February 2008.
- ^ Keynes, Randal (2004). "Darwin, William Erasmus (1839–1914)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94741.
External links
[edit ]- 1948 births
- Living people
- Alumni of New College, Oxford
- British humanists
- Charles Darwin biographers
- Darwin–Wedgwood family
- Keynes family
- Officers of the Order of the British Empire
- People educated at Marlborough College
- Fellows of the Linnean Society of London
- People from Cambridge
- English humanists