Sir William Pearce, 1st Baronet

Sir William Pearce, 1st Baronet (8 January 1833 – 18 December 1888) was a British shipbuilder, under whose management the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan on the River Clyde became the leading shipbuilding company in the world. He was later a Conservative Party politician.

Pearce was born near Chatham in Kent, where he trained as a shipwright and naval architect at the Chatham Dockyard. After supervising the construction of HMS Achilles, the first ironclad warship built in Chatham, he moved in 1863 to Scotland to take up the post of surveyor to the Lloyd's Register on the Clyde.

His career then developed rapidly. A year after arriving on Clydeside, he became general manager of R. Napier and Sons, where he designed innovative fast, transatlantic liners for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. In 1869 he became a partner in John Elder & Co, and after the retirement of the other partners he became the firm's sole owner in 1878. In 1886, spending more time on his political career in London, he converted the business to a limited company, the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. Pearce remained as chairman.

Fairfield became a world leader in ship design and marine engineering, and was most famous for the development of the triple expansion engine. The shipyard and offices in Govan occupied a site of over 70 acres (28 ha), and employed up to 5000 workers. It built ships for the major shipping lines, including the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, the New Zealand Shipping Company, and the British and Africa Steam Navigation Company. Pearce was a major shareholder in the first of these clients, and was also chairman of the Guion Steamship Company, and of the Scottish Oriental Steamship Company.

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