[2] Deane was born in Hong Kong in October 1918, the daughter of an Admiralty engineer.
[3] She attended Chatham County School in Kent, then Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow, before gaining a master's degree (MA) in Economic Science from the University of Glasgow in 1940.
She left in 1950 for Cambridge University, where she was a researcher, then lecturer, in applied economics until 1971.
[2] Among other academic honours, Deane was president of the Royal Economic Society from 1980 to 1982, a fellow of the British Academy,[4] and was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by Glasgow University in 1989.
[2] She was emeritus professor of economic history until her death in July 2012, aged 93.