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. Early life Pearson was born on 4 October 1793 at 25 Clement's Lane in the City of London, the son of Thomas Pearson, an upholsterer and feather merchant, and his wife Sarah. After education in Eastbourne, he was apprenticed to his father but instead studied law and qualified as a solicitor in 1816. In 1817, he was released from his indenture by the Haberdashers' Company and married Mary Martha Dutton. The couple had one child, Mary Dutton Pearson, born in 1820. City career and campaigning In 1817, Pearson was elected a councilman of the City of London Corporation for Bishopsgate ward and served in that role from 1817 to 1820 and from 1830 to 1836 as well. He served as chairman of the City board of health from 1831 to 1833. In 1839, he gave up his extensive private practice and was appointed City Solicitor, holding that office until his death. Despite his comfortable upbringing and his high social status, Pearson was a radical, and throughout his life he fought a number of campaigns on progressive and reforming issues including the removal from the Monument inscription blaming the Great Fire of London on Catholics, the abolition of packed special jury lists for political trials, and the overturning of the ban on Jews becoming brokers in the City. Pearson was in favour of the disestablishment of the Church of England and opposed capital punishment. Politically, he supported universal suffrage and electoral reform to balance the sizes of parliamentary constituencies. He unsuccessfully attempted to break the