Sir William Prescott, 1st Baronet

Who was Sir William Prescott, 1st Baronet?

Sir William Henry Prescott, 1st Baronet CBE, DL was a British engineer and Conservative Party politician.

The son of John Prescott, he initially studied law and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1909. He subsequently took up a career in civil engineering, acting as a consultant to a number of government committees on water supply and roads.

During the First World War he was commanding officer of 222nd Field Company, Royal Engineers, part of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. He was invalided home to the United Kingdom in 1915.

He was elected at the 1918 general election as Coalition Conservative Member of Parliament for Tottenham North,

but stood down at the 1922 election. Prescott was awarded a CBE in 1920 for his role is raising troops in Tottenham and was knighted in 1921. He was also awarded the King Albert Medal by Albert I of Belgium.

A longtime member of Middlesex County Council where he served as an alderman and vice-chairman, he represented the authority on the Metropolitan Water Board. He was chairman of the MWB from 1928 to 1940, and two massive steam-driven pumping engines at Kempton Park Pumping Station were named "William" and "Bessie" after Prescott and his wife. He was appointed in 1924 as a Deputy Lieutenant of Middlesex, and in 1929 served as High Sheriff of the county. He was also a member of a number of other committees connected with Middlesex, a member of the Worshipful Company of Paviors and the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass and a Freeman of the City of London.