My cousin Graham Pearson, who has died aged 88, was a research chemist and then a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, serving from 1984 until 1995 as director general of what is now the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire.
Arising from a growing interest in arms control, which led him while still in post to work on verification methods to enforce the Biological Weapons Convention, in 1996 he joined Bradford University’s Department of Peace Studies as an honorary visiting research fellow in international security. His skills as an organiser, analyser and writer, helped by his boundless energy and genial personality, involved him in numerous meetings designed to strengthen the BWC, including in Geneva during Pugwash conferences on science and world affairs. He published widely in the field of chemical and biological weapons. Subsequently a visiting professor, he was made a DUniv of Bradford in 2018.
He was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, the only child of Reg Pearson, a textile manufacturer, and his wife, Alice (nee Maclachlan). Graham was born almost completely deaf, but he determinedly overcame this disability, partly through a mastery of lip-reading. He was educated at Woodhouse Grove school and the University of St Andrews, where he read chemistry, staying on for his doctorate.
It was there, while playing badminton, that he met his future wife, Susan Benn, a modern languages student. They married in 1960, departing immediately for the US, where Graham had been awarded a research fellowship at the University of Rochester. In their ’56 Chevrolet station wagon they embarked on an 11,000-mile camping trip before returning home in 1962.
Graham then joined the scientific civil service. Placed initially with the MoD’s Rocket Propulsion Establishment, he continued to specialise in this area of defence research and development. A highlight was his three-year posting, in the same capacity, to the British embassy in Washington (1969-72), for which Susan and their two small sons accompanied him.
Moving into administration, from 1980 to 1983 he was deputy director of the Research Development Establishment at Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks in Kent. During his final post, at Porton Down, he was appointed CB in 1990.
Following a move from Wiltshire to Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds in 2001, Graham brought the same energy and dedication to his 20 years of voluntary work at the National Trust garden at Hidcote Manor. Not content with being a garden guide, he set about uncovering Hidcote’s history and the life of its founder, Lawrence Johnston, travelling extensively to work on archival sources. Two books resulted, including the profusely illustrated Hidcote: The Garden and Lawrence Johnston (2007).
Graham is survived by Susan, his sons, Gavin and Douglas, and five grandchildren.
