Paul Clark Eddington (18 June 1927 – 4 November 1995) was an English actor best known for playing Jerry Leadbetter in the television sitcom The Good Life (1975–78) and politician Jim Hacker in the sitcom Yes Minister (1980–84) and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister (1986–88). Early life Eddington was born at Paddington in London to decorative artist Albert Clark Eddington and Frances Mary (née Roberts); he was raised in St John's Wood. The family were Quakers – Albert Clark Eddington being related to the Somerset shoemaking Clark family and the scientist Sir Arthur Eddington – and Eddington was brought up by his parents with strict family values. His father had been "emotionally shattered" on his return from the First World War, which led to Eddington being a life-long pacifist. Eddington attended Sibford School, Sibford Ferris, Oxfordshire. In 1952, he married Patricia (née Scott). Career Having registered as a conscientious objector, Eddington began his acting career as a teenager with Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) during the Second World War. He worked for Sheffield Repertory Theatre, a theatre company based at Sheffield Playhouse. In 1956, he played his first major role on television as the corrupt policeman PC Tom Carr in the Dixon of Dock Green episode The Rotten Apple, and later that year he became a regular cast member of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Initially he played minor characters, but in the fourth season (1959–60), he played Will Scarlet. He had a leading role in 'Liberty Bar', a 1960 episode of "Maigret", BBC TV series, playing 'Harry Brown', an Australian entrepreneur. He had roles in episodes of The Avengers (1963), The Prisoner (1967) and the final episode of The Champions (1969). He was a main cast member of the television series Frontier (1968). He also had a supporting role in Hammer Films' The Devil Rides Out (1968), an episode of Van der Valk in 1972, and appeared as a "straight man" (substituting for regular stooge Henry McGee) in a 1976 episode of The Benny Hill Show. He also appeared in most episodes of the ATV series Hine (1971). In this he played Astor Harris, a member of an arms-dealing firm named Pendles. Eddington appeared as civil servant Strand in the last series of Special Branch (1974). Career peak Although he was an actor for all his adult life, it was not until Eddington was in his late forties that