The British statesman Francis Pym (born 1922) was foreign secretary during the Falkland Islands War of 1982.

Francis Leslie Pym was born on February 13, 1922, in Abergavenny, Monmouth County, Wales, into a family that had provided political leaders to Britain for centuries. One of his ancestors was John Pym, a leader of the parliamentary cause in the 17th-century civil war. When he entered the House of Commons for the first time in 1961, representing a Cambridgeshire district where his family had long been prominent, he was the fifth Pym to serve his country there. His father, Leslie Ruthven Pym, was a member of Parliament who became Conservative Party whip as well as a wealthy real estate broker.

Brought up in a privileged background, Pym was educated at the traditional training grounds for the nation's ruling elite, Eton College, and at Magdalene College of Cambridge University. He entered the army in 1942 and served...