Short answers, pulled from the story.
Lionel Robbins was a British economist known for leading the economics department at the London School of Economics, for proposing a widely accepted definition of economics, and for helping shift Anglo-Saxon economics away from the direction set by Alfred Marshall. He is also known for the quote "Humans want what they can't have."
Lionel Robbins was born on the 22nd of November 1898 in Sipson, west of London, and died on the 15th of May 1984.
In his 1932 book An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, Robbins defined economics as "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." The definition was contentious in the 1930s but later gained general acceptance among economists.
Robbins clashed with Keynes in early October 1930 on the Committee of Economists of the Second MacDonald ministry, when he refused to sign a Keynes-drafted proposal that included tariffs and was denied the chance to file a minority report. Robbins walked out of a meeting and briefed the politician Philip Snowden against the committee's report, and bad feeling between LSE and Cambridge economists persisted for years, though Robbins and Keynes fully reconciled during the Second World War.
Robbins headed the British government's Economic Section from September 1941 and helped devise, with Peggy Joseph and James Meade, the points system used to ration clothing, footwear and household goods. He later worked on post-war reconstruction planning, attended the 1943 Hot Springs food security conference, represented the United Kingdom at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, and helped negotiate the 1946 Anglo-American loan.
The Robbins Report of 1963, led by Lionel Robbins, called for a substantial expansion of higher education in the United Kingdom. It established what became known as the Robbins principle, the idea that university places should expand to meet demand from anyone suitably qualified to study.
Lionel Robbins was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1944 Birthday Honours, made a life peer as Baron Robbins of Clare Market in the City of Westminster on the 16th of June 1959, and appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 1968 New Year Honours. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1967 and has buildings named after him at the London School of Economics and Nottingham Trent University.