Edward Pearce, Baron Pearce

Edward Holroyd Pearce, Baron Pearce, PC (9 February 1901 – 26 November 1990) was a British judge.

Pearce was born in Sidcup in Kent, the son of a headmaster. He was educated at Charterhouse School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn and Middle Temple in 1925, he became deputy chairman of the East Sussex Quarter Sessions in 1947. In 1948, Pearce was appointed a High Court judge, receiving the customary knighthood. He was initially assigned to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, before being transferred to the Queen's Bench Division in 1954. He was made a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1957, and was invested to the Privy Council.

On 19 April 1962, he was made Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and was created a life peer with the title Baron Pearce, of Sweethaws in the County of Sussex. He retired as Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1969, and became instead Chairman of the Press Council until 1974. Until 1976, he was chairman of the Appeals Committee of the Takeover Panel.

Having been made a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1948, he was its treasurer from 1966. Between 1971 and 1972, he chaired a commission investigating the acceptability of a proposed constitutional settlement in Rhodesia.

In 1927, he married Erica Priestman, daughter of Bertram Priestman. They had two sons, James and Bruce, both of whom became QCs.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• "family.ray-jones.org.uk". Retrieved 2007-01-12.