Tombs, Sir Francis Leonard, 1924-2020, Knight, Baron Tombs of Brailes

Identity area

Type of entity

Person

Authorized form of name

Tombs, Sir Francis Leonard, 1924-2020, Knight, Baron Tombs of Brailes

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        Description area

        Dates of existence

        1924-2020

        History

        Born in Walsall in 1924, Francis Tombs worked as a St John Ambulance first aider during the Second World War. In 1946 he worked as an electrical engineer with the General Electric Company (GEC). He joined the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) in 1969 as Director of Engineering and was later promoted to Deputy Chair and, in 1974, Chair. In 1977, he was invited to head the Electricity Council, the industry’s supervisory body, and held the post for three and a half years. Lord Tombs became chair of the Weir Group in the early 1980s and took over as Chair of Rolls-Royce in 1985, having been a board member for three years.

        Lord Tombs was knighted in 1978 and became a life peer in 1990, taking his title from a Warwickshire village. He sat as a Crossbench peer until his retirement in 2015 and was a member of the Lords’ Science and Technology and Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; he also chaired a Select Committee on sustainable development.

        He served as President of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, now the Institution of Engineering and Technology, in 1981 and was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

        Lord Tombs was the University of Strathclyde’s second Chancellor and held the post from 1991 to 1997.

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        General context

        Relationships area

        Related entity

        University of Strathclyde (1964 to date)

        Identifier of related entity

        C0047

        Category of relationship

        associative

        Dates of relationship

        1991-1997

        Description of relationship

        Lord Tombs was the University of Strathclyde’s second Chancellor.

        Access points area

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        Control area

        Authority record identifier

        P0553

        Institution identifier

        GB 249

        Rules and/or conventions used

        ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families, International Council on Archives (2nd edition, 2003); Rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names, National Council on Archives (1997).

        Status

        Level of detail

        Dates of creation, revision and deletion

        Created by Rachael Jones, May 2020

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