Obituary . — Henry Harold Welch Pearson . xi 
She seemed quite confident that Galton will still remember her, and begged 
me to give him a message from her. Her name is Mrs. Bassingthwaite. . . . 
The flies and the temperature are both fairly beyond words. I suppose this 
country is destined to become a colony some day, but the native question 
must be solved first. I fancy that what is necessary is a thorough study 
of the subterranean watercourses throughout the whole of South Africa.’ 
Pearson had many stories of amusing incidents on his journeys. One of 
his colleagues in the South African College writes : ‘ It was a treat, for 
instance, to hear him tell in his unique way the story of the old storekeeper 
with whom he had stayed a couple of days and become friendly. This man 
had two sons and was obsessed with the necessity of fixing up their careers. 
He would like to consult the Professor. The elder was a really clever fellow ; 
in his case there would be no difficulty, he naturally would go into business. 
But the trouble was the second. He was a very decent boy, but a bit dull — yes, 
dull ; he would be no good at business. It is good to recall the twinkle in 
Pearson’s eyes and the laughter in his voice when he described the old man’s 
trouble and the evident beating about the bush, and finally his blurting 
out quite seriously, “ Couldn’t you tell me how to make him a professor 
like you ? ” ’ 
The visit of the British Association to South Africa in 1905 was an 
event which gave great satisfaction to Pearson; he was justly proud of his 
department and enjoyed showing it to his visitors. He played no small 
part in contributing to the success of the meeting, which is associated in my 
mind with memorable days spent with him and his wife in their Kenilworth 
home. 
Of the many services rendered by Pearson to Science perhaps in some 
respects the part he played in the establishment of the National Botanic 
Garden 1 is the greatest. It is a splendid memorial of a botanist whose 
explorations enormously extended our knowledge of the richness of the floras 
of South Africa, and who by his manifold activities and sound common sense 
succeeded in demonstrating to the layman the value of botanical research. 
There can be no doubt that the credit for this addition to the efficiency of 
the Empire is mainly due to Pearson, though he would not admit that he 
was entitled to more than a comparatively small share in the events which 
led the Government to take the final step. The project was first put forward 
in a concrete form in his Presidential address before Section C of the South 
African Association for the Advancement of Science in 1910. He advocated 
concentrated action by the South African Colonies with a view to the full 
development of their unrivalled botanical resources, and formulated a scheme 
worthy of a many-sided and far-sighted botanist. The Garden should be 
a centre of botanical activity in the widest sense ; it should be concerned with 
1 For a fuller account of the Garden and its inception and establishment the reader is referred 
to the Kew Bulletin, 1913, p. 309, and to the Gardeners’ Chronicle, August 30, 1913, p. 151. 
