Pablo Martín-Aceña Manrique, born in Madrid in 1950, died on Sunday 7 July at the age of 74. He was a major figure in contemporary Spanish economic history and one of the leading historians of the Banco de España. Martín-Aceña conducted extensive research on the origins of the bank and the changes over its almost 250-year history. His publications included El Servicio de Estudios del Banco de España: 1930/2000 [The Banco de España Studies Service: 1930-2000] (2000), and more recently, The Banco de España, 1782-2017: the History of a Central Bank, published in 2017 as part of the Estudio de Historia Económica collection.

Just five months ago, as part of his work for the Curator's Division, he appeared on El Banco de España, la historia del palacio del dinero [Banco de España; the History of the Money Palace], a radio programme produced by Radio Nacional de España (RNE) to mark (The Architecture of Eduardo de Adaro and the Banco de España. A Changing World) exhibition. He also contributed to the (2328 reales de vellón. Goya and the origins of the Banco de España Collection) exhibition catalogue, where he wrote on the way the bank built up its collection between 1782 and 1856. In a text for the catalogue, entitled Banco de San Carlos and Banco de San Fernando. Predecessors of the Banco de España, Martín-Aceña wrote that the initiative to create the Banco de San Carlos was in keeping with Spanish enlightenment principles on national development and which explains the importance that the bank has always given to its artistic and heritage collection.

Professor of History and Economic Institutions and Dean of the School of Economics, Business and Tourism at the University of Alcalá de Henares from 2013 until his recent retirement, Pablo Martín-Aceña Manrique's research encompassed a wide range of topics; he specialised in the monetary and financial fields, with particular emphasis on an analysis of the economic context of the Second Republic, the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. Much of his scholarship also focused on the business history of Spain.

Martín-Aceña Manrique was visiting professor at the universities of Budapest, Harvard, Leuven, Paris X Nanterre, Cambridge and the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. He was also president of the Spanish Association of Economic History and editor of an academic journal on economic history, Revista de Historia Económica. In 1997 he was awarded the Royal Order of Civil Merit for his work heading the research team of the Commission of Inquiry into Second World War Gold Transactions from the Third Reich.

He authored and co-authored numerous books, including La cantidad de dinero en España: 1900-1935 [The Quantity of Money in Spain: 1900-1935] (1985), Una estimación de los principales agregados monetarios en España, 1940-1962 [An Estimate of Principal Monetary Aggregates, 1940–1962] (1988), both published by the Banco de España; Los rasgos históricos de las empresas en España: un panorama [Historical Features of Spanish Companies: a Panorama] (1996), which he co-wrote with Francisco Comín Comín; El oro de Moscú y el oro de Berlín [Moscow's Gold and Berlin's Gold] (2001); Pasado y presente: de la Gran Depresión del siglo XX hasta la Gran Recesión del siglo XXI [Past and Present: from the Great Depression of the Twentieth Century to the Great Recession of the Twenty-First] (2011); and more recently Historia del Fondo Monetario Internacional [History of the International Monetary Fund] (2019) and Historia de la banca colonial española. Banco Español de La Habana, Banco Español de Puerto Rico and Banco Español-Filipino de Isabel II [History of Spanish Colonial Banking. The Spanish Bank of Havana, the Spanish Bank of Puerto Rico and the Hispano-Filipino bank of Isabella II] (2020).