Lord Ron Dearing of Kingston upon Hull Kt CB HonFREng - died on February 19, 2009 aged 78
Obituaries for Lord Ron Dearing of Kingston upon Hull Kt CB HonFREng in The Times and The Telegraph
Tribute from past President Sir William Barlow FREng
Lord Dearing (78) who died in February, was elected an Honorary Fellow in recognition of his contributions to higher education and engineering.
He had a distinguished career in the Civil Service, starting at 16 as a clerk in Hull labour exchange. After National Service in the RAF he won a scholarship to Hull University and the rejoined the Civil Service in the Treasury and later Ministry of Fuel and Power and finally DTI. He was involved in the privatisation of the aerospace, shipbuilding industries and persuaded the Government to privatise BT. At that time he was appointed Chairman of The Post Office.
This was followed by a series of chairmanships of Government higher education amongst which were the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, theUniversities Funding Council and others too numerous to mention. Always he pressed the case for science and engineering as essential for the nation's economy.
He became a director of several companies amongst which was Ericsson(UK) which was deeply involved in the supply of Vodafone base stations
Ron Dearing was a an extremely hard worker and a very modest man who shunned trappings of office. People liked working for him and greatly respected his ability to take on new challenges leading from the front.
