Russell Frederick Bretherton

Russell Frederick Bretherton, CB (3 February 1906 – 11 January 1991), was a British economist, civil servant and amateur entomologist, particularly noted for his membership of the Spaak Committee in 1955.

Born in Gloucester in 1906 and educated at Clifton College, Russell Frederick Bretherton went to Wadham College, Oxford, as a history scholar in 1923. A First in History was followed by a First in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), and the Webb Medley Scholarship, the major university award open to a budding economist. Elected a fellow of Wadham in 1928 he was Tutor in Economics until 1939. (Harold Wilson was one of his pupils.) His major work was "Public Investment and the Trade Cycle" , written with F.A. Burchardt and S.G Rutherford and published in 1941. Partly overtaken by the war the volume was nevertheless widely received as a model of its kind which would exert a salutary influence on public policy for years to come. At the start of the Second World War, Bretherton was drafted into the Ministry of Supply as a temporary Civil Servant, and pursued a Whitehall career thereafter. In 1949 he was at the centre of the sterling crisis which led to the major devaluation of the pound. In 1955 he was an Under Secretary at the Board of Trade.

At the time of the negotiations which eventually led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the UK Government was opposed to propositions which involved submerging any part of its sovereignty in new European political institutions. The UK had already declined to become a member of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and had been unenthusiastic about the proposed European Defence Community.

Consequently, and contrary to many subsequent incorrect reports, the UK was not represented at the Messina Conference in June 1955. At that meeting the Benelux members of the ECSC represented at Foreign Minister level argued that: "it is necessary to work for the establishment of a united Europe by the development of common institutions, the gradual fusion of national economies, the creation of a common market and the gradual harmonisation of … social policies." At the end of the conference a committee was set up under the Chairmanship of the Belgian Foreign Minister Henri Spaak, to further these studies. The UK government was invited to join in the discussions but, given that it was not looking for a positive outcome, appointed as their representative not a politician, but a trade economist and civil servant, Russell Bretherton.

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