Francis Pearson
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Sir Francis Fenwick Pearson, 1st Baronet MBE JP (13 June 1911 – 17 February 1991) was a British colonial administrator, farmer and politician.
Contents
Colonial service
Pearson attended Uppingham School in Rutland, and then Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant onto the Unattached List for the Indian Army from being a Second Lieutenant, T.A.(University Candidate) in September 1932, with seniority from 29 January 1931. After a year attached to a British regiment in India, he was appointed to the Indian Army and posted to the 1st King George’s Own Gurkha Rifles as of 3 November 1933. He served as Aide-de-camp to the Viceroy of India from June 1935 to April 1936.[1]
He transferred to the Indian Political Service in October 1935. In June 1945 he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire as Captain, Indian Political Service.[2] He finished as Chief Minister of Manipur State from 1945 to 1947, and the village of Pearson in the Churachandpur district was named in his honour.
With the independence of India imminent, Pearson returned to Britain and settled in Lancashire where he became a farmer, and also involved himself in local government. He was a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire from 1952.
Parliamentary career
At the 1959 general election, Pearson replaced Richard Fort (who had died earlier in the year) as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Clitheroe, a rural constituency in the Lancashire foothills of the Pennines. He was swiftly named as an Assistant Government Whip (1960) and became a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (Government Whip) in March 1962.
Parliamentary Private Secretary
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who became Prime Minister in October 1963, choose Pearson to be his Parliamentary Private Secretary, an unpaid but pivotal role where Pearson had to maintain relations between the Prime Minister and his own backbenchers. When Douglas-Home lost the 1964 general election and resigned as Prime Minister, he gave Pearson a Baronetcy in his resignation honours list.
Lancashire contribution
Pearson retired from Parliament at the 1970 general election, but not from politics. He was Chairman of the Central Lancashire New Town Development Corporation from 1971 (the new town covered Preston, Chorley, Leyland and several other areas).
References
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs [self-published source][better source needed]
- M. Stenton and S. Lees, "Who's Who of British MPs" (Harvester Press, 1981)
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Francis Pearson
Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by | Member of Parliament for Clitheroe 1959–1970 |
Succeeded by David Walder |
- Use dmy dates from April 2012
- Accuracy disputes from March 2012
- Articles lacking reliable references from March 2012
- Wikipedia articles incorporating an LRPP-MP template without an unnamed parameter
- 1911 births
- 1991 deaths
- British Indian Army officers
- People from Manipur
- Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
- Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
- Conservative Party (UK) MPs
- Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
- UK MPs 1959–64
- UK MPs 1964–66
- UK MPs 1966–70
- Members of the Order of the British Empire