Fonds 009 - A.F.W. Plumptre fonds

Arthur Fitzwalter Wynne Plumptre, referred to as A.F.W. or Wynne, was the second principal of Scarborough College, a subordinate college of the University of Toronto. Plumptre was born in 1907 and raised in Toronto, the son of Rev. Canon Henry Pemberton Plumptre and Adelaide Mary Wynne-Willson. He graduated with a degree in political science from University College, University of Toronto in 1928 and studied for two years at King's College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Plumptre was in contact with British economist and King's College lecturer John Maynard Keynes. He gained an appointment as lecturer at the University of Toronto in 1930. Plumptre was involved in economics at the national level during the Great Depression, assisting on the 1933 Royal Commission on Banking and Currency in Canada and co-edited, with University of Toronto professor Harold Innis, The Canadian Economy and Its Problems (1934). He married Beryl Alice Rouche of Heidelberg, Australia in 1938, with whom he had three children — Barbara, Judith, and Timothy. In 1949 Plumptre became the head of the Economics Division of the federal Department of External Affairs, followed by an appointment as deputy representative on the North Atlantic Council and the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. In 1954 Plumptre became the director of International Economic Relations, and from 1955 to 1965 served as an assistant deputy Minister of Finance.

In 1965 Plumptre was appointed as second principal of Scarborough College, following University of Toronto vice president D.C. Williams. Plumptre oversaw the formal opening of the College in October 1966. The College developed rapidly, soon outpacing many established universities in the province in enrolment growth. In 1971, Plumptre established the Committee on the Status and Future of Scarborough College, which recommended in its final report that the college move towards a more autonomous governance model within the university, which was supported by two-thirds of the college council. He retired as principal in 1972, and in 1974 was made an honorary member of the college. Following his this, Plumptre returned to the study of economics and took on the mantle of governor of the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, His magnum opus, entitled Three Decades of Decision: Canada and the World Monetary System, 1944-75, was published posthumously in 1977.