16 Facts About Hesketh Pearson

Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson was a British actor, theatre director and writer.

Hesketh Pearson is known mainly for his popular biographies; they made him the leading British biographer of his time, in terms of commercial success.

Hesketh Pearson's parents were Thomas Henry Gibbons Pearson, a farmer, and the former Amy Mary Constance Biggs.

Hesketh Pearson was a great-great-great nephew of the statistician and polymath Francis Galton, whom he described in Modern Men and Mummers.

Hesketh Pearson employed the funds to travel widely, and on his return joined his brother's car business.

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At the outbreak of the First World War, Hesketh Pearson enlisted immediately in the British Army but was invalided out when it was discovered that he suffered from tuberculosis.

Hesketh Pearson volunteered for the Army Service Corps and was sent to Mesopotamia, where the climate was conducive to treatment for tuberculosis.

Hesketh Pearson recovered from that malady there but contracted several other diseases, septic sores, dysentery and malaria and was close to death on three occasions.

Hesketh Pearson attributed his survival to his practice of reciting long passages of Shakespeare while he was critically ill.

Hesketh Pearson distinguished himself under fire and, on one occasion, received a severe head wound from shrapnel.

Hesketh Pearson began to write as a journalist, and published some short stories and essays.

Hesketh Pearson won the case, partly because of his "engaging candour appealed to the jury".

Hesketh Pearson was a close friend and collaborator of Malcolm Muggeridge.

Hesketh Pearson died in 1951 and he married again, to Dorothy Joyce Ryder later that year.

Hesketh Pearson died on 9 April 1964 at his home, 14 Priory Road, Hampstead, London.

Hesketh Pearson wrote two autobiographies: Thinking it Over and Hesketh Pearson by Himself, which was published posthumously a year after his death.