58 PEOOEEDINGS OF THE 



were marked by tlioroughiiess, breadth of view, and originality, but 

 tiiroiigh his attractive and compelling personality, and his bound- 

 less energy, be was able to do mucb n)ore for the advancement of 

 learning and for the promotioii of the scientific spirit than can be 

 measured by the amount of his published work. Pearson had to 

 a large extent his own way to make, and it was his determination 

 and power of concentrated effort that enabled him to carve out 

 his career and to achieve conspicuous success in several branches 

 of botany. 



Harold Pearson was born at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, in 

 1870. He received the first part of his education in his father's 

 school at Wiclihambrook, in Suffolk, and was for a short time a 

 boarder at a school at Beceles. On leaving school he became 

 assistant to a chemist at Hawk hurst, but having another aim in 

 view he devoted his leisure to preparing himself for the London 

 University JMatriculation examination, and after passing this 

 examination he obtained an assistant mastership at Mr. Waite's 

 school, St. Aubyn's, at Eastbourne. It was at Eastbourne in 1892 

 that I first met Pearson as a student attending a course of lectures 

 which I was delivering as a University Extension Lecturer, and 

 from that time onwards it was my privilege to keep in close touch 

 with him. In the following year he obtained a Clothworkers' 

 Exhibition, and with the additional assistance genei'ously given by 

 the Eev. Herbert Alston, who was then Rectcr of Little Bradley, 

 in Suffolk, he was able to realize his ambition of entering the 

 University with a view to proceeding to a degree in Natural 

 Science. For the first three years of his Cambridge life Pearson 

 was a non-collegiate student; in 1895 he became a member of 

 Christ's College, of which he was elected a Eoundatiou Scholar. 

 He obtained a Eirst Class in both parts of the Natural Sciences 

 Tripos; in 1898 he was elected to a Frank Smart Studentship, 

 and, in accordance with the regulations governing the Studentship, 

 he migrated to Gonville and Caius College. In 1896 he went to 

 Ceylon, and for the work he accomplished there be subsequently 

 obtained the Walsingham Medal. In 1898 he was appointed 

 Assistant Curator of the Cambridge Herbarium, and in the 

 following year he became a member of the staff at the Royal 

 Gardens, Kew, where he remained until his appointment as the 

 first Harry Bolus Pi'ofessor at the South African College, Cape 

 Town, in 1903, a post which he held at tlie time of his death. In 

 1907 he took the Cambridge Sc.D. degree, and in 1916 was elected 

 a Fellow of the Eoyal Society. Before leaving England Pearson 

 married the youngest daughter of the late William Pratt, of Little 

 Bradle}', Suffolk, who has recently been aftpointed Warden of a 

 Hostel, which has been founded as a memorial to her husband, 

 for lady gardeners and botanical students at the National Gardens. 



Pearson's contributions to botany range over several branches 

 of the subject : liis first publisiied |)aper deals with the anatomy 

 of the seedling of the Queensland Cycad Botvenia spectahilis ; and 

 in later years, by his own observations in the field and with the 



