Eugene Grebenik
| Eugene Grebenik | |
|---|---|
| Born |
20 July 1919 Kiev |
| Died | 14 October 2001 (aged 82) Oxford |
| Fields | Demography |
Eugene Grebenik CB, known as "Grebby" (20 July 1919, Kiev – 14 October 2001, Oxford) was a central figure in the development of demography in Britain and the first director of the British Civil Service College.
Grebenik was the only son and elder child of Schulim Grebenik (1887–1972), estate agent, and his wife, Lea Helene, née Lopatizkaya (1894–1985), a qualified lawyer, both Jewish. His birth was not registered with the Ukrainian government because his mother didn't want him to be naturalised and thought that this was mandatory. He had a sister, Renata Rosalie. The family moved to Danzig in 1920, then to Berlin, and finally, after the rise of Adolf Hitler, to England in 1933. Grebenik could speak several European languages but none like a native. All his life he was known as Grebby, because he never liked the association with eugenics born by the name 'Eugene'.
He attended the Xaverian College Catholic high school in Brighton.
Grebenik went to the London School of Economics in 1935 aged sixteen, and graduated with a first-class degree in economics (with statistics and demography as his special subject) at eighteen. He earned the Farr medal and prize. After a brief spell working in the City of London, he returned to the LSE as research assistant to Arthur Bowley, and then moved to Bristol to work with H. A. Shannon. Their book, The Population of Bristol, was published in 1943. Rejected by the army due to his foreign birth, Grebenik returned to the LSE in 1940 and graduated MSc in 1941.
Promoted to lecturer in statistics in 1944, Grebenik was seconded to the Admiralty for the final year of World War II as a statistical officer, where he worked with William Brass. He was then seconded for a year to the secretariat of the Royal Commission on Population. He was naturalised on 23 November 1946 and shortly afterwards married Virginia Barker.
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