Professor Leslie Vincent Castle 1924-2003.

• Author: Brown, Bruce
• Position: Obituary - Obituary

Professor Les Castle, who died in Wellington on 25 October 2003, was an honorary vice-president of the NZIIA, to which he had rendered signal service.

In 1968, while a Macarthy Professor of Economics at Victoria University of Wellington, Les was, with the support of Frank Holmes, principally responsible for the initiative of seeking and obtaining a substantial grant from the Ford Foundation of New York. Amounting to US$100,000 (worth many times that today) over the three-year period 1969 to 1971, these funds enabled the NZIIA to establish the National Office, with a full-time staff of three, on Victoria University's campus. In following years he was an active and influential participant in NZIIA seminars and meetings.

Les Castle was born in Timaru in 1924 and after leaving Timaru Boys' High School, joined the Social Security Department. His hopes to go on to university were interrupted by the Second World War in which, after early service in the New Zealand Army and Navy, he was attached to the Royal Navy, serving as communications officer in HMS Venerable. On his return to New Zealand, he transferred to the Department of Industries and Commerce and then to the Treasury while studying part time. He eventually graduated with an MA with first-class honours in economics.

Subsequently, he joined the then Department of External Affairs and was appointed Counsellor (Economic) in the New Zealand High Commission in London. On his return, he became Head of the department's Economic Division. He soon decided that he preferred an academic to a diplomatic career, in order to concentrate his work on economics, and he took up an appointment as a...