About Charles Pearson
Charles Pearson (4 October 1793 – 14 September 1862) was a British lawyer and politician. He was solicitor to the City of London, a reforming campaigner, and – briefly – Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Lambeth. He campaigned against corruption in jury selection, for penal reform, for the abolition of capital punishment, and for universal suffrage. Pearson used his influence as City Solicitor to promote improvements to transport communications. Initially, he proposed a central railway station for the City, accessed by tunnel, that would be used by multiple railway companies enabling workers to commute to the City from further away. When this plan was rejected, Pearson promoted an underground railway connecting the capital's northern termini. The resulting Metropolitan Railway was the first underground railway in the world and led to the development of the extensive London Underground network and the rapid expansion of the capital. Transport writer Christian Wolmar considers Pearson to have "by far the best claim" to be the first to propose the idea of an underground railway to deal with London's congestion problem. In 1846, Pearson proposed with the support of the City Corporation a central railway station for London located in Farringdon that was estimated to cost £1 million (approximately £96.5 million today).
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