Francis Tombs, Baron Tombs

Tombs was born to a Catholic family in Walsall in 1924, one of three sons born to Joseph and Jane (née Bouncer) Tombs.^[1] He was educated at Elmore Green School, Walsall, and at the University of London.^[1] He worked for the General Electric Company from 1944 to 1946.^[1]

Tombs had a career in industry, particularly in electricity generation.^[2] He was chairman of the South of Scotland Electricity Board,^[3] the Electricity Council^[4] and Rolls-Royce.^[5] Tombs was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1981^[6] and became an Honorary Fellow of its successor organisation the Institution of Engineering and Technology in 1991.^[7] Tombs was named chairman of Turner & Newall P.L.C.,^[1] Britain's largest manufacturer of asbestos products on 30 November 1982,^[8] and remained there throughout much of the 1980s.

Knighted in 1978,^[9] Tombs was created a life peer on 29 February 1990, as Baron Tombs, of Brailes in the County of Warwickshire.^[10][11][12] He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher, and was on a number of committees. Tombs was granted a leave of absence in March 2008, which lasted until July 2010.^[13][14] He wrote a memoir, Power Politics: Political Encounters in Industry and Engineering, which was published later that year.^[15] Tombs retired from the House of Lords on 31 March 2015.^[16]

In 1949, Tombs married Marjorie Evans; they had three daughters and were married until her death in 2008.^[1]

Tombs died from complications of dementia at a care home in Coventry on 11 April 2020, at the age of 95.^[1][17]