Obituary . — Henry Harold Welch Pearson. xiii 
impossible to provide a salary for such a botanist. There is no other one 
who is in a position to take charge of it without payment. If I don’t do it 
the South African Botanic Garden collapses for the time being. Circum- 
stances are therefore too much for me and, though at no little personal 
sacrifice, I must undertake it. It will not entail my giving up my own 
line of work (at least it shall not), but it must interfere with it to some 
extent. But my own view is that if I can establish a Botanic Garden here 
on a sound basis I shall do more for Botany than by writing an extra 
paper or two. It may not be so good for myself, but that is, I hope, 
beside the point. I have been carried on almost involuntarily and have 
persuaded myself that I am acting rightly. . . . Since I wrote to you the 
Council has given me a second Lecturer.’ In July of the same year he 
wrote : ‘ As to the Directorship — there is at present no money available 
for a botanist, and I can do the place a greater service by doing what little 
I can in an honorary capacity than if I became a salaried officer. ... I feel 
that the thing has come upon me unsought and I have no choice but to 
take it up. It will be a burden, but it is worth carrying if it never falls to 
me to exploit its contents.’ The author of an appreciative and sympathetic 
article in the ‘ South African College Magazine ’ in describing Pearson’s 
work for the National Garden writes : 1 He never fully appreciated the 
value of his own enthusiasm and manner ; and I remember the doubts 
which assailed him as the last attack — in a fight which he knew had been 
fought and lost many a time in the previous forty years — progressed and 
the unalloyed joy he experienced when at last he saw the Garden 
established.’ 
Pearson was appointed Honorary Director and began his duties on 
August i, 1913. The last time I saw him was on July 20, 1914. The 
Director’s house was nearing completion and the plant-nurseries (Plate) 
were well stocked with material received from various parts of the Dominion. 
From a wet glen in which were several plants of the South African Fern 
Hemitelia capensis we climbed up a rocky slope, on the summit of which 
Aloes were flourishing (Plate) in a habitat sharply contrasted with that 
below, and from a still higher point we looked across a forest of Silver-trees 
( Leucadendron argenteum ) and beyond to the shores of the Cape Peninsula, 
a view that it would be hard to match in any other Garden. 
The following notes, for which I am indebted to Mrs. Pearson, show 
how he spent his days as Director and Professor : ‘ He so arranged his 
work at the South African College that he was able to devote Wednesday, 
Saturday, and Sunday to the Gardens. On the other days he left home at 
7.45 a.m. summer and winter, driving himself to the station in all weathers, 
a distance of miles, and usually returned home at 5.30 p.m. After tea 
he walked round the Gardens inspecting work and arranging various matters 
with the Curator and Ranger. His evenings were spent in attending to 
