Charles John Pearson

Sir Charles John Pearson (6 November 1843 – 15 August 1910) was a Scottish politician and judge.

He was born at Edinburgh on 6 November 1843. He was second son of Charles Pearson, chartered accountant, of Edinburgh, by his wife Margaret, daughter of John Dalziel, solicitor, of Earlston, Berwickshire. After attending Edinburgh Academy, he proceeded to the University of St. Andrews, and thence to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself in classics, winning the Gaisford Greek prizes for prose (1862) and verse (1863). He graduated B.A. with a first class in the final classical school in 1865.

He afterwards attended law lectures in Edinburgh, and became a member of the Juridical Society, of which he was librarian in 1872-3, and of the Speculative Society (president 1869–71). He was called to the English bar (from the Inner Temple) on 10 June 1870, and on 19 July 1870 passed to the Scottish bar, where he rapidly obtained a large practice. Though not one of the crown counsel for Scotland, he was specially retained for the prosecution at the trial of the City of Glasgow Bank directors (January 1879), became sheriff of chancery in 1885, and procurator and cashier for the Church of Scotland in 1886.

In 1887, he was knighted, and was appointed sheriff of Renfrew and Bute in 1888, and of Perthshire in 1889. Pearson was a conservative, though not a keen politician, and in 1890 was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland in Lord Salisbury's second administration, and was elected (unopposed) as Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities. In the same year he became Q.C.

...
Wikipedia