Purnell Handy Benson ’35

PURNELL BENSON died Apr, 27, 1992. Born in Highland Park, Ill., he graduated from Bronxville (N.Y.) H.S. At Princeton he explored physics but chose to major in philosophy, earning Phi Beta Kappa honors. He enjoyed assisting professors Van Nattai and Van Der Graaf with their particle acceleration experiments, spent many happy hours with Dean Wicks, and worked for the summer camp group. He was active in Glee Club and WhigClio, and helped organize the Princeton AntiWar Society.

Purnell got his M.A. at Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. in sociology from the Univ. of Chicago in 1952. During WWII he was a conscientious objector and volunteer subject of medical experiments by the Army Epidemiological Board.

He joined Rutgers Univ. Graduate School of Business, in 1967, and taught marketing and price theory there until 1984, when he became a professor emeritus. Purnell continued to lecture at Columbia and N.Y.U. graduate schools of business after 1984, and published many papers describing how computerinduced trades were affecting normal supply and demand in stock markets. At the Atlantic Economic Conference in Apr. 1987 at Munich, his findings warned of potentially massive price shifts on the New York Stock Exchange.

A deeply religious man, Purnell was a member of Long Hill Chapel in Chatham, NJ. He wrote the college textbook, RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE (Harper & Brothers, 1960), founded the Newark Presbyterian publication and served as its first editor, and published the PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW OF CHRISTIAN FAIIH in 1990.

Purnell married Mary Burgess in 1947. She survives him, along with their three children, John Chapman '72, Janice Sabky '80, and Alice Virginia. He is also survived by two brothers, George '30 and Jack,

The Class of 1935