Sir Arthur Francis Pease, 1st Baronet, Doctor of Laws was an English coal owner and public servant.
Background
Pease was born in Hummersknott, a suburb of Darlington. He came from a wealthy local Quaker family, and was the son of the coal owner and Member of Parliament Arthur Pease and the brother of the politician Herbert Pike Pease, 1st Baron Daryngton.
Education
He was educated at Brighton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1888 joined the family firm, Pease & Partners Limited, of which he later became chairman.
Career
Pease eventually also became chairman of Middlesbrough Estate Limited, North-Eastern Improved Dwellings Company, William Whitwell & Company, and the Durham & North Yorkshire Public House Trust, and a director of the North Eastern Railway Company/London and North Eastern Railway Company, Lloyds Bank, Horden Collieries Limited, the Forth Bridge Railway Company, the National Benzole Company, and a number of others Pease was appointed a deputy lieutenant of County Durham in December 1906 and High Sheriff of Durham for 1920-1921. He became prominent as a representative of the employers in negotiations with the Miners" Federation and favoured hard responses to worker militancy.
He served as Second Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1918 to 1919, and for this he was created a baronet in the 1920 Birthday Honours.
He acquired Middleton Lodge in North Yorkshire, where he lived until his death. Pease died of a cerebral haemorrhage during a board meeting of Horden Collieries Limited on 23 November 1927.
Membership
He was a member of a number of government committees. He also had three daughters, the youngest of whom, Elizabeth Frances, married Sir Frank O"Brien Wilson, a member of the Legislative Council of Kenya.