Ian Fairbairn

Stephen Ian Fairbairn (14 April 18965 December 1968) was a British financier and rower who competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics, and later rose to the position of chairman of the M&G fund management company. Personal life Fairbairn was the son of Steve Fairbairn and his wife Eleanor née Sharwood. He went to school at Eton. Fairbairn married Cynthia Isabelle Theresa Arbuthnot, daughter of Gerald Arbuthnot, MP for Burnley on 27 July 1925. They had two children and were divorced in 1941. He was married a second time in 1941, to Esmée V. H. Bethell (also known as Esmée Stobart from her earlier marriage, from which she had two sons). She was killed in an air-raid by a flying bomb in 1944. In 1961 he created the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation as a memorial to his second wife, transferring his personal holding in M&G Group plc to the trust. This endowment allowed it to become one of the larger charities in the UK.