Francis Pearson

Sir Francis Fenwick Pearson, 1st Baronet, MBE, JP (13 June 1911 – 17 February 1991) was a British colonial administrator, farmer and politician.

Colonial service

Pearson attended Uppingham School in Rutland, and then Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He enlisted in the Gurkha Rifles in 1931 and went out to India, where he transferred to the Indian Political Service. He served as Aide-de-camp to the Viceroy of India from 1933 to 1934. In 1945 he was awarded membership of the Order of the British Empire. 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

*Rayment
*M. Stenton and S. Lees, "Who's Who of British MPs" (Harvester Press, 1981)