About Thomas Pearson (British Army officer, born 1914)
General Sir Thomas Cecil Hook Pearson, (1 July 1914 – 15 December 2019) was a senior officer of the British Army who served as Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe from 1972 to 1974. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living British full general. == Background and early career == Thomas Pearson was born on 1 July 1914, shortly before the First World War began, in Queenstown, Ireland. He was the son of Commander (later Vice-Admiral) John Lewis Pearson (1878–1965), a Royal Navy officer, and Phoebe Charlotte Pearson. A member of a notable Staffordshire family with a long tradition of service in India and the British Armed Forces, Pearson was the fourth generation of his family to achieve general officer or flag rank. His great-great-grandfather John Pearson (1771–1841) was a barrister and senior East India Company official who served as Advocate-General of Bengal from 1824 to 1840. His great-grandfather General Thomas Hooke Pearson CB (1806–1892) served as an ADC to the Earl Amherst, then Governor-General of India. He fought under Lord Combermere at the Siege of Bharatpur and served with the 16th The Queen's Lancers in the Gwalior campaign (Maharajpur) and the First Anglo-Sikh War (Badowal, Aliwal and Sobraon), commanding a regiment at Sobraon and being mentioned in despatches. His grandfather, Admiral Sir Hugo Pearson KCB (1843–1912) joined the Royal Navy and rose to command the Australia Station, before retiring as Commander-in-Chief, The Nore in 1907. Pearson was educated at Charterhouse School, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he, along with another future general officer, Douglas Darling, was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) on 30 August 1934.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.