Sir James Denning Pearson FRAeS Wh.S.Sch (8 August 1908 – 1 August 1992) is a former Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce Limited.

Early life

He was born in

Bootle Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. Historically part of Lancashire, Bootle's ...

. His father died when he was eleven. He grew up in Cardiff. He gained a First Class degree from Cardiff Technical College. Pearson became a Whitworth Senior Scholar in 1930 having used his Scholarship to do steam turbine research at

Metropolitan-Vickers Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, it was particularly well known for its industrial el ...

and in 1985 became President of the

Whitworth Society The Whitworth Society was founded in 1923 by Henry Selby Hele-Shaw, then president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Its purposes are to promote engineering in the United Kingdom, and more specifically to support all Whitworth Scholars ...

Career

Rolls-Royce

He joined Rolls-Royce in 1932. During the Second World War, he was Chief Engineer at the R-R shadow factory in Glasgow, producing 150 Merlin engines a week. He oversaw the expansion of Rolls-Royce into the jet aero-engine market in the 1960s.

Personal life

He married Eluned Henry in 1932, and they had two daughters. He was knighted in the 1963 New Year Honours. He became an FRAeS in 1964 and was awarded the Gold Medal of th
Royal Aero Club
in 1967.FRAeS
/ref> He died in the

Amber Valley Amber Valley is a local government district and borough in the east of Derbyshire, England, taking its name from the River Amber. It covers a semi-rural zone with four main towns whose economy was based on coal mining and remains to some exte ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

References

External links

New Scientist profile in August 1962The Papers of Sir (James) Denning Pearson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearson, Denning 1908 births 1992 deaths Alumni of Cardiff University Businesspeople from Cardiff English chief executives Fellows of the Royal Aeronautical Society People from Amber Valley People from Bootle Rolls-Royce people 20th-century English businesspeople 20th-century Welsh businesspeople