William Piercy, 1st Baron Piercy

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(7 February 1886 – 7 July 1966) was a British economist, civil servant, businessman and financier. He is best remembered as chairman of the Industrial & Commercial Finance Corporation from 1945 to 1964.

Early life

Piercy was the only son of Edward Piercy, of

Hoxton Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It li ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

, and his second wife Mary Ann Margaret (née Heaford). His father was killed in an industrial accident in 1893. Piercy was educated locally, but left school at the age of twelve to join Pharaoh Gane, timber brokers, as an office boy. He studied at night and in 1910, aged 24, he became a full-time undergraduate student at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

. He graduated B.Sc. in 1914 and was for a time a lecturer in history and public administration at the school.

Career

During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Piercy worked for the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation t ...

, was a member of the Allied Provisions Export Commission and a director of the Ministry of Food. For his services he was made a

in 1919. After the war he became trading general manager of Harrisons & Crosfield Ltd and joint managing director of Pharaoh Gane, and in the early 1930s he was one of the organisers of the first

unit trust A unit trust is a form of collective investment constituted under a trust deed. A unit trust pools investors' money into a single fund, which is managed by a fund manager. Unit trusts offer access to a wide range of investments, and depending on ...

s. Between 1934 and 1942 he was a member of the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

he rendered the government great service, notably as head of the British Petroleum Mission in

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, as principal assistant secretary in the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Aircraft Production and as personal assistant to the

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president ...

Clement Attlee. On 14 November 1945 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Piercy, of

Burford Burford () is a town on the River Windrush, in the Cotswold hills, in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England. It is often referred to as the 'gateway' to the Cotswolds. Burford is located west of Oxford and southeast of Che ...

in the

County of Oxford Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

. From 1945 to 1964 Piercy served as chairman of the Industrial & Commercial Finance Corporation, which was set up to provide means to smaller businesses in the United Kingdom. He was also a director of the Bank of England from 1946 to 1956 and chairman of the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

from 1960 to 1965. He also served as

President of the Royal Statistical Society The president of the Royal Statistical Society is the head of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), elected biennially by the Fellows of the Society. (The time-period between elections has varied in the past, and in fact elections only rarely occur ...

from 1954 to 1955. He was a governor of

The Peckham Experiment The Peckham Experiment was an experiment designed to determine whether people as a whole would, given the opportunity, take a vested interest in their own health and fitness and expend effort to maintain it. The experiment took place between 192 ...

in 1949.

Family

Lord Piercy married, firstly, Mary Louisa, daughter of Thomas Henry William Pelham, in 1915. They had one son and three daughters. After his first wife's death in 1953, he married, secondly, Veronica, daughter of Mrs Ann Warham, in 1964. He died in July 1966, aged 80, and was succeeded in the barony by his only son Nicholas.

Arms

References

*Williams, E. T., Nicholls, C. S. ''The Dictionary of National Biography: 1961–1970''. Oxford University Press, 1981. *Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). ''Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage'' (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990. *

External links

*
Catalogue of the Piercy papers
at th

of the

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Piercy, William Piercy, 1st Baron 1886 births 1966 deaths Alumni of the London School of Economics Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society British economists British civil servants 20th-century British businesspeople Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Barons created by George VI