Patrick Pery, 6th Earl of Limerick

Patrick Edmund Pery, 6th Earl of Limerick KBE, AM (12 April 1930 – 8 January 2003), was an Irish peer, banker and public servant. He was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford. As he left Oxford his father wisely told him "You have unfortunately been born with a prefix to your name, and unless you get an equivalent number of suffixes people will assume you are a fool". So among other things he became a chartered accountant . Pat Limerick was never anyone's fool. A noted athlete, he skied for the House of Lords against the House of Commons.

In the City, Pat Limerick became a director of the merchant bank Kleinwort Benson. Then in 1970 and upon his becoming prime minister , Edward Heath called Limerick and asked "On the assumption that you were willing to become member of the Conservative party, would you be prepared to serve in the government?" Limerick was then Under-Secretary of State for Trade in the Conservative Government 1970-1974

On the defeat of the Heath government in 1974, he immediately became President of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce (now the British Chambers of Commerce, the BCC) in succession to Sir Robin Brooke. In that capacity Pat Limerick led the transformation of the ABCC and raised it to a level of national influence at which it was effectively competing with, and sometimes eclipsing, the much younger Confederation of British Industry. At the time the two organisations occupied the same building in Tothill Street / Dean Farrar Street in Westminster. In its original form, the ABCC, often known as 'The 'Parliament of Commerce', dated back to 1860. After his three-year term of office with the Chambers of Commerce was completed, Lord Limerick then became Chairman of the British Overseas Trade Board 1979-1983, as well as being Chairman of the British Invisible Exports Council from 1975 to 1991. He was chairman of the European-Atlantic Group from 1999 to 2001.

He was a director of banknote printers De La Rue from 1983 to 1997, and chairman from 1993.

He was Knight President of the Society of Knights of the Round Table from 1993. He was also Honorary Colonel of The Inns of Court and City Yeomanry.

On 7 September 2001 he was appointed an Honorary Member of the Order of Australia, for service to Australian-British relations.^[1]

Pery was the grandson of British Indian officer Henry Trotter.^[2]

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Limerick
• The Daily telegraph obituary