Neville Pearson


Sir Neville Arthur Pearson, 2nd Baronet was a British newspaper publisher.

Biography

Born in Frensham, Surrey, he was the son of the British newspaper magnate Sir C. Arthur and Dame Ethel Pearson. His father, who was a journalist, died in 1921, whereupon he succeeded to the baronetage.
Pearson served during the World War I from 1917 to 1918 in the Royal Field Artillery. He succeeded his father as publisher of a number of magazines. From 1923 to 1953 his private secretary at George Newnes Ltd. was the British poet and novelist Stevie Smith.
He was married in 1922 to Hon. Mary Angela Mond, daughter of the Minister of Health Alfred Moritz Mond, 1st Baron Melchett. In 1928 he married the actress Gladys Cooper, but divorced her in 1936. Sir Neville and Lady Pearson had one daughter, Sally Pearson, a.k.a. Sally Cooper, who was married to actor Robert Hardy from 1961 to 1986.
Sir Neville served again, during World War II, as a major in an anti-aircraft regiment of the Royal Artillery. In 1947 he succeeded his mother as president of St Dunstan's Hostel for the Blind, the home for blinded soldiers from World War I which his father, who had become blind himself, had founded in 1915.
Pearson, who by that time had taken residence in the United States at Hightstown, New Jersey, died on 6 November 1982, aged 84. On his death, the baronetcy became extinct.

General references

Category:20th-century British newspaper publishers
Category:1898 births
Category:1982 deaths
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