Loading AI tools
British peer (1924–2020) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Francis Leonard Tombs, Baron Tombs (17 May 1924 – 11 April 2020) was an English industrialist and politician who served as a crossbench member of the House of Lords from 1990 until his retirement in 2015.
Tombs was born to a Catholic family in Walsall in 1924, one of three sons born to Joseph and Jane (née Bouncer) Tombs.[1] He was educated at Elmore Green School, Walsall, and at the University of London.[1] He worked for the General Electric Company from 1944 to 1946.[1]
Tombs had a career in industry, particularly in electricity generation.[2] He was chairman of the South of Scotland Electricity Board,[3] the Electricity Council[4] and Rolls-Royce.[5] Tombs was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1981[6] and became an Honorary Fellow of its successor organisation the Institution of Engineering and Technology in 1991.[7] Tombs was named chairman of Turner & Newall P.L.C.,[1] Britain's largest manufacturer of asbestos products on 30 November 1982,[8] and remained there throughout much of the 1980s.
Knighted in 1978,[9] Tombs was created a life peer on 29 February 1990, as Baron Tombs, of Brailes in the County of Warwickshire.[10][11][12] He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher, and was on a number of committees. Tombs was granted a leave of absence in March 2008, which lasted until July 2010.[13][14] He wrote a memoir, Power Politics: Political Encounters in Industry and Engineering, which was published later that year.[15] Tombs retired from the House of Lords on 31 March 2015.[16]
In 1949, Tombs married Marjorie Evans; they had three daughters and were married until her death in 2008.[1]
Tombs died from complications of dementia at a care home in Coventry on 11 April 2020, at the age of 95.[1][17]
|
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.