H. H. W. Pearson, F.R.S., Sc.D. (Cambridge). 
BY 
A. C. SEWARD. 
H ENRY HAROLD WELCH PEARSON was born at Long Sutton, 
Lincolnshire, on January 28, 1870, and died on November 3, 1916, at 
the Mount Royal Hospital, Wynberg, Cape Town. He had been ill for 
several weeks, and after recovering from the effects of an operation for 
haemorrhoids he contracted pneumonia, which caused his death : it is 
suggested by the author of an obituary notice in the ‘ South African 
College Magazine* that an attack of malaria in 1913 in Portuguese West 
Africa was the beginning of the undermining of his never very robust health. 
His widow writes : ‘ Most of us feel that the strain of the College and 
Garden work had been too much for him, and when pneumonia attacked 
him he had not sufficient strength to fight against it.’ When Pearson was 
about eight years old his father went to live at Wickhambrook, Suffolk, 
where he kept a boys’ school, and here the son received part of his education : 
he was for a short time a boarder at a school at Beccles. On leaving school 
it was arranged that he should begin his career as a chemist’s assistant at 
Hawkhurst ; the work was uncongenial, but his employer spoke of him as 
the best assistant he had ever had. By judicious use of his spare time 
Pearson was able to pass the London Matriculation examination, and 
shortly afterwards he was appointed assistant master at Mr. Waite’s school 
at Eastbourne, where he remained about four years. In a recent letter to 
Mrs. Pearson the Head Master’s sister wrote : ‘ He did a great deal of 
studying, and we were particular about the boys keeping quiet and 
away from his study during the evenings ; we all just loved him.’ He 
obtained a Cloth workers’ Exhibition and entered the University of Cam- 
bridge as a Non-Collegiate student in 1893. He obtained a First class in 
both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos (1896-7). In October, 1 96, 
after taking his Bachelor’s degree, he entered Christ’s College and was 
elected Scholar in the following June. In the same year he went to Ceylon 
with the assistance of a grant of ^ico from the Cambridge University 
Worts Travelling Fund, the additional cost of the visit being generously de- 
frayed, as Pearson states in his account of the Ceylon work, by his very 
good friend the Rev. Herbert Alston, formerly Rector of Little Bradley, 
Suffolk. In 1898, in consequence of his election to a Frank Smart 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXXI. No. CXXII. April, 1917.] 
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