He was born in
Cockermouth in
Cumberland in 1788, the son of John Fallows, a weaver, and his wife Rebecca Fallas. He was taught by his father to read, and learned Latin and maths, and worked as a Parish Clerk in the nearby village of Bridekirk. Due in some part to the dedication of his father and the generosity of the townspeople, the scholarly Fearon was given the funds to attend
St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied
mathematics, coming third in his year when he graduated in 1813. He obtained his
Master of Arts in 1816 and went on to teach mathematics at
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He also became a Fellow of
St John's College, Cambridge and an ordained priest in the
Church of England. On 29 February 1820 he was elected a fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society and on 8 June 1820 he was granted a fellowship of the
Royal Society. One of his proposers for his fellowship to the Royal Society was
John Herschel (son of
William Herschel) whom he met at
St John's College, Cambridge. Later in that year he was appointed by the
Admiralty to be the
astronomer at the
Cape of Good Hope, which would involve overseeing the building of an observatory in what was then a British colony. Before travelling to
South Africa, he married Mary Anne Hervey, on 1 January 1821. Between 1821 and 1829 he worked to site, plan and develop the observatory, which was the first astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere. He also served the
Church of England in his time there. He, and all the observatory staff, caught scarlet fever in 1830 and, still director of the observatory, he died of
scarlet fever in
Simon's Town, South Africa in 1831 at the age of forty-three. ==Astronomical work==