G. E. M. Anscombe (1919–2001)

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe, was born in Limerick, Ireland, to British parents while her father was serving as an officer in the British Army. She became interested in the Roman Catholic faith and converted while still an undergraduate at St. Hugh's, Oxford, in 1941. Later that year, she married Peter Geach, a fellow philosophy student with whom she would have seven children. After graduating with first class honors and spending another year at St. Hugh's as a research student, she moved to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she had a Research Fellowship. At Cambridge she met Ludwig Wittgenstein and attended his lectures, continuing to do so even after she had moved back to Oxford to take up a Research Fellowship at Somerville College in 1946. She later had a Teaching Fellowship there until 1970, when she became the Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge. She remained there until she retired from teaching in 1986. After Wittgenstein died in 1951, having named Anscombe as one of three literary executors of his estate, she began translating his works into English. Philosophical Investigations, published in 1953, introduced his philosophy to the English-speaking world. Anscombe published several important works of her own, including Intention (1957). She is best known for her work on ethics and the philosophy of action.