Ronnie Fearn, Baron Fearn

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Ronald Cyril Fearn, Baron Fearn, Template:Post-nominals (6 February 1931 – 24 January 2022) was a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was born and died in Southport.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life

Fearn was born in 1931 in Southport, the son of James (a master decorator) and Martha Ellen (Template:Nee Hodge) Fearn. His birth was registered without his middle name in the Ormskirk registration district of Lancashire. Southport is now part of Merseyside.<ref>General Register Office public indices of birth, marriages and deaths, vol. 8b page 1378 which included until 1934 Southport.</ref><ref name="whoswho"/><ref>Obituary, Telegraph.co.uk. Accessed 20 October 2022.</ref>

Educated at King George V Grammar School, Southport, Fearn was a banker by profession, becoming a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers. He worked as a banker with Williams Deacons Bank, Williams & Glyn's Bank, and later the Royal Bank of Scotland.<ref name="whoswho">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Political career

Fearn was the Liberal and later Liberal Democrat MP for Southport from 1987 to 1992 and 1997 to 2001, after unsuccessfully contesting the seat at the four 1970s general elections. He was the Lib. Dem. spokesman on health and tourism (1988–89), on local government (1989–90), and on transport, housing and tourism (1990–92). In Parliament, he was a member of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport from 1997 to 2001.<ref name="whoswho" />

Fearn served from 1974 until 2016 as a Sefton Metropolitan Borough councillor, having been a member of its predecessor body, Merseyside County Council. He thus achieved over 50 years of continuous service, being first elected as a Liberal and then for its successor party, the Liberal Democrats.<ref name="whoswho" /> Fearn first contested the borough at the inaugural elections of 1973 as a candidate for the Southport ward of Craven-Sussex-Talbot, in which he topped the poll, receiving more votes than the two other Liberal candidates elected alongside him.<ref name=":0" />

In 1982, Fearn was elected as a Liberal-SDP candidate for the Norwood ward, again topping the poll. In 1990, he was elected for the Social and Liberal Democrats, and four years later, as a Liberal Democrat: the latter party had succeeded those he had previously represented. At every single Sefton election he contested, Fearn was top of the results, including those in which multiple candidates were elected.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

He received a life peerage and joined the House of Lords as Baron Fearn, of Southport in the County of Merseyside, in 2001.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> He retired from the House on 11 July 2018.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Honours

In the 1985 Birthday Honours, Fearn was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

Personal life

In 1955, Fearn married Joyce Edna Dugan; they had a son, Martin, and a daughter.<ref name="whoswho" /> Martin became a mathematics teacher at Cowley International College, St. Helens. Outside of politics, Fearn listed his recreations as badminton, amateur dramatics and athletics. He lived in Southport.<ref name="whoswho" />

Fearn died in Southport on 24 January 2022, at the age of 90.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>