Sir Cyril Arthur Pearson, 1st Baronet,
GBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
(24 February 1866 – 9 December 1921) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
newspaper
magnateA business magnate, sometimes referred to as a mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is a partially informal term used to refer to a person who has reached a prominent place in a particular industry and whose wealth has been derived primarily therefrom.-Description:Such people usually...
and
publisherPublishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view...
, most noted for founding the
Daily ExpressThe Daily Express is a conservative, British tabloid newspaper. It is a middle-market title, the flagship title of Express Newspapers and is currently owned by Richard Desmond...
.
Pearson was born in the village of
WookeyWookey is a village and civil parish west of Wells, on the River Axe in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. It is perhaps best known today for the nearby Wookey Hole Caves. The parish includes the village of Henton and the nearby hamlets of Yarley and Bleadney where the River Axe, travels...
,
SomersetSomerset is a county in South West England. The county town is Taunton, which is in the south of the county. The ceremonial county of Somerset borders the counties of Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west...
to Arthur Cyril and Phillippa Massingberd Maxwell (Lyte) Pearson and educated at the prestigious
Winchester CollegeWinchester College is a famous boys' independent school, set in the city of Winchester in Hampshire, England, the ancient capital. Officially known as Collegium Sanctae Mariae prope Wintoniam , or St Mary's College near Winchester, the College is commonly referred to as "Win: Coll:" or just...
in
HampshireHampshire , sometimes historically Southamptonshire, Hamptonshire, , or the County of Southampton, is a county on the south coast of England. The county borders , Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
. His father was Rector of Drayton Parslow in Buckinghamshire, England per the District 16, Drayton Parslow, Buckinghamshire, England 1881 Census.
Sir Cyril Arthur Pearson, 1st Baronet,
GBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
(24 February 1866 – 9 December 1921) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
newspaper
magnateA business magnate, sometimes referred to as a mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is a partially informal term used to refer to a person who has reached a prominent place in a particular industry and whose wealth has been derived primarily therefrom.-Description:Such people usually...
and
publisherPublishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view...
, most noted for founding the
Daily ExpressThe Daily Express is a conservative, British tabloid newspaper. It is a middle-market title, the flagship title of Express Newspapers and is currently owned by Richard Desmond...
.
Family and Early life
Pearson was born in the village of
WookeyWookey is a village and civil parish west of Wells, on the River Axe in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. It is perhaps best known today for the nearby Wookey Hole Caves. The parish includes the village of Henton and the nearby hamlets of Yarley and Bleadney where the River Axe, travels...
,
SomersetSomerset is a county in South West England. The county town is Taunton, which is in the south of the county. The ceremonial county of Somerset borders the counties of Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west...
to Arthur Cyril and Phillippa Massingberd Maxwell (Lyte) Pearson and educated at the prestigious
Winchester CollegeWinchester College is a famous boys' independent school, set in the city of Winchester in Hampshire, England, the ancient capital. Officially known as Collegium Sanctae Mariae prope Wintoniam , or St Mary's College near Winchester, the College is commonly referred to as "Win: Coll:" or just...
in
HampshireHampshire , sometimes historically Southamptonshire, Hamptonshire, , or the County of Southampton, is a county on the south coast of England. The county borders , Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
. His father was Rector of Drayton Parslow in Buckinghamshire, England per the District 16, Drayton Parslow, Buckinghamshire, England 1881 Census. His first job was as a
journalistJournalism is the craft of conveying news, descriptive material and comment via a widening spectrum of media. These include newspapers, magazines, radio and television, the internet and even, more recently, the mobile phone...
working for the London-based publisher
George NewnesSir George Newnes, 1st Baronet was a publisher and editor in England.He was born in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire. His father, Thomas Mold Newnes, was a Congregational church minister at the Glenorchy Chapel, Matlock. He was educated at Silcoates School and then at Shireland Hall, Warwickshire, and...
. Within his first year he had impressed Newnes enough for him to make him his principal assistant.
In December 1887, Pearson married Isobel Sarah Bennett, the daughter of Canon Frederick Bennett, of Maddington, Wiltshire, with whom he had three daughters.
In 1897, Pearson married, as his second wife,
Ethel FraserDame Ethel Maud Pearson DBE , usually known as Lady Pearson, née Ethel Maud Fraser, was a British humanitarian....
, daughter of William John Fraser. Ethel was the mother of Pearson's son and heir
Neville PearsonNeville Arthur Pearson was born on 13 February 1898 in Frensham, Surrey, England.He was the son of the British newspaper magnate to Sir C. Arthur and Ethel Maud Pearson. His journalist, blind father died in 1921. He succeeded his father as publisher of a number of magazines...
.
Career
In 1890, after six years of working for Newnes, Pearson left to form his own publishing business and within three weeks had created the periodical journal
Pearson's Weekly, the first issue of which sold a quarter of a million copies.
A
philanthropistPhilanthropy is the effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations.- Definition :It is generally agreed that the word was coined 2500 years ago in ancient Greece, by the playwright Aeschylus, or whom ever else wrote Prometheus Bound...
, in 1892 he established the charitable
Fresh Air Fund, still in operation and now known as
Pearson's Holiday Fund, to enable disadvantaged children to partake in outdoor activities.
In 1898, he purchased the
Morning Herald, and in 1900 merged it into his new creation, the halfpenny
Daily Express. The
Express was a departure from the papers of its time and created an immediate impact by carrying news instead of only advertisements on its front page. He was also successful in establishing papers in provincial locations such as the
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
Daily Gazette. He came into direct competition with the
Daily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily tabloid newspaper. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982. Scottish and Irish editions of the paper were launched in...
and in the resulting commercial fight almost took control of
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
, being nominated as its manager, but the deal fell through.
In 1900 Pearson despatched the explorer and adventurer Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard to
PatagoniaPatagonia is a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America. Located in Argentina and Chile, it comprises the southernmost portion of the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low plains to the east. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by...
to investigate dramatic reports of a giant hairy mammal inhabiting the forests, and conjectured to be a
giant ground slothMylodon is an extinct genus of giant ground sloth that lived in the Patagonia area of South America until roughly 10,000 years ago.Mylodon weighed about and stood up to tall when raised up on its hind legs. Preserved dung has shown it was a herbivore. It had very thick hide and had osteoderms...
, long since extinct. Hesketh-Prichard's reports from 5,000 miles away gripped readers of
The Express, despite him finding no trace of the creature.
During this same period, Pearson was also active as a writer, and wrote a number of tourist guides to locations in Britain and Europe. Under the
pseudonymA pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.Pseudonyms are often used to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre and computer hackers' handles. Actors, musicians, and other...
of "Professor P R S Foli", he wrote
Handwriting as an Index to Character in 1902, as well as works on
fortune-tellingFortune-telling is the practice of predicting the future, usually of an individual, through mystical or supernatural means, and often for commercial gain...
and
dream interpretationFor the John Cale minimalist album, see Dream Interpretation Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could...
.
Pearson was a strong supporter of
Joseph ChamberlainJoseph Chamberlain was an influential British businessman, politician, and statesman.In his early years Chamberlain was a radically minded Liberal Party member, a campaigner for educational reform, and President of the Board of Trade. He later became a Liberal Unionist in alliance with the...
's tariff-reform movement, and organised the
Tariff Reform LeagueThe Tariff Reform League was a pressure group formed in 1903 to protest against 'unfair' foreign imports and to advocate Imperial Preference to protect British industry from foreign competition. It was well funded and included politicians, intellectuals and businessmen, and was popular with the...
in 1903, becoming its first chairman.
In 1904 he purchased the struggling
The Standard and its sister paper the
Evening StandardThe London Evening Standard is a free local daily newspaper, published in tabloid format in London, England. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the southeast of England, with coverage of national and international news and a strong emphasis on City of London finance...
for
£The pound sterling , often simply called the pound, is the currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory...
700,000 from the Johnstone family. He merged the
Evening Standard with his
St James Gazette and changed the
ConservativeThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
stance of both papers into a pro-
LiberalThe Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the mid 19th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which would become...
one, but was unsuccessful in arresting the slide in sales and in 1910 sold them to the
MPA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
Sir Davison Dalziel and Sir Alexander Henderson.
Loss of eyesight and later life
Beginning to lose his sight due to
glaucomaGlaucoma is a group of diseases that affect the optic nerve and involves a loss of retinal ganglion cells in a characteristic pattern. It is a type of optic neuropathy. Raised intraocular pressure is a significant risk factor for developing glaucoma...
despite a 1908 operation, Pearson was progressively forced from 1910 onwards to relinquish his newspaper interests; the
Daily Express eventually passed, in November 1916, under the control of the Canadian–British tycoon Sir Max Aitken, later
Lord BeaverbrookWilliam Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Bt, PC, was a Canadian-British business tycoon, politician, and writer.-Early career in Canada:...
.
Later completely
blindBlindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
, Pearson was made president of the National Institution for the Blind in 1914, raising its income from £8,000 to £360,000 in only eight years. In 1915, he founded
St Dunstan'sSt Dunstan's is a charity providing support, rehabilitation and respite care to blind ex-service personnel of the British Armed Forces. St Dunstan's has an office in London and its National Centre is based in Ovingdean, near Brighton.- Description :...
Home for soldiers blinded by
gas attackThe use of poison gas in World War I was a major military innovation. The gases ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas and the severe mustard gas, to lethal agents like phosgene and chlorine. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the...
or trauma during the
First World WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. Its goal, radical for the times, was to provide vocational training rather than charity for invalided servicemen, and thus to enable them to carry out independent and productive lives. Pearson's dedication to this work led to him receiving a Baronetcy on 12 July 1916, whereupon he took the title Pearson, 1st
Baronet of St Dunstan's-Pearson of Cowdray, Sussex:* See Viscount Cowdray-Pearson of St Dunstan's, London:* Sir Cyril Arthur Pearson, 1st Baronet* Sir Neville Arthur Pearson, 2nd Baronet...
, London. He received the
GBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1917.
Pearson was a close friend of the pioneer of the
ScoutingScouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, so that they may play constructive roles in society....
movement
Baden-PowellRobert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB , also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement.After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British...
, and supportive of his efforts in setting up the movement and publishing its magazine
The Scout. When Pearson's scheme for publishing in
BrailleThe Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Braille was devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each...
was faltering due to lack of funds, on 2 May 1914 Baden-Powell publicly requested that "all Scouts perform a 'good turn' for
The Scout magazine publisher Mr C Arthur Pearson, in order to raise money for his scheme of publishing literature in Braille for the blind."
In 1919, Pearson wrote the book
Victory over blindness: how it was won by the men of St. Dunstan's.
He founded the
Greater London Fund for the BlindThe Greater London Fund for the Blind is a British charity. It was formed in 1921 by Sir Arthur Pearson to co-ordinate the raising of funds to improve the lives of blind and visually-impaired people in London....
in 1921, funded by the establishment of its annual 'Geranium Day' appeal.
Death
Pearson died on 9 December 1921 when he drowned in his bath after knocking himself unconscious in a fall. He was buried in
Hampstead CemeteryHampstead Cemetery is a historic cemetery in West Hampstead, London, located at the upper extremity of the NW6 district. Despite the name, the cemetery is three-quarters of a mile from Hampstead Village, and bears a different postcode...
after a service to which the Cabinet, the British and Norwegian royal families, and many institutes for the blind all sent official representatives. Two of his
pallbearerA pallbearer is one of several funeral participants who helps carry the casket of a deceased person from a religious or memorial service or viewing either directly to a cemetery or mausoleum, or to and from the hearse which does so....
s were blind. He was survived by his wife, son and three daughters.
In 1922 his biography,
The Life of Sir Arthur Pearson, was written by Sidney Dark.
External links