235 



3n flDemoriam. 



SAMUEL MARGERISON. 



The death took place in Leeds on June 8th of Mr. Samuel 

 Margerison, for many years one of the best known and most 

 highly respected residents of Calverley. Mr. Margerison, who 

 was in his sixtieth year and was unmarried, had been keen on 

 assisting his country in the war, and had been working in a 

 Leeds munition factory. He was taken ill a week ago with 

 pleurisy and bronchitis, but despite the attention of Dr. Arnold 

 Lees, pneumonia developed with fatal results. 



Mr. Margerison was the son of the late James Margerison 

 of Calverley, and was a member of a family which has been 

 resident in the parish for some centuries. For several genera- 

 tions, the family has been associated with the timber trade, 

 and Samuel Margerison, succeeding his father in the 

 business, specialised principally in English oak. Much timber 

 collected by him from various parts of the country is now in 

 buildings of historic fame, and when Mr. Margerison, some 

 twenty years ago, erected at Calverley his beautiful house, 

 Grey Gables, for which he acted as his own architect and 

 which he decorated with his own hand, he filled the place with 

 fine panelling, some of it historic. It included for instance 

 the panelling of the historic ' murder room ' of the scene of 

 the ' Calverley Tragedy ' of pseudo-Shakespearian fame. To 

 the scientific and economic study of timber, Mr. Margerison 

 made important contribution, and he was a vice-president of 

 the British Timber Trade Association. For a considerable 

 number of years he paid great attention to the subject of 

 timber-planting, and he came to be prominent among the 

 expert foresters in the country. He was called upon to give 

 evidence to the Royal Commission on Afforestation, and he 

 acted as adviser to many owners of large estates and to several 

 corporations and other public bodies. Perhaps the most 

 interesting enterprise with which he was associated in this 

 direction was the afforestation of the area adjacent to the 

 Leeds waterworks reservoirs in the Upper Washburn. The 

 idea of planting waterworks catchment areas with trees met 

 with a good deal of opposition from some waterworks engineers, 

 but Mr. Margerison, with pen and voice, urged the desirability 

 of the project, and his advice, with that of other experts, pre- 

 vailed with the Leeds authority. It must be, of course, years 

 before the Leeds corporation reaps the financial reward of their 

 enterprise in afforesting slopes surrounding the Fewston and 

 Swinsty reservoirs, but there is already assurance that the 

 experiment, as it was regarded by many at the time, will 

 prove eminently successful. 



A man of enormous energy of mind, Mr. Margerison made 



1917 July 1. 



