Leonard Edward Beard Pearse died at his home in Brighton on 19th April, 1952, at the age of 72.
He entered Sherborne School in 1895, but left at the age of 15 to serve a four-year apprenticeship to Edward Wilson, engineer, of Exeter, after which he worked for a year as draughtsman with James Simpson, Ltd., of London. He then studied engineering subjects for a year at the Polytechnic, Regent Street, before entering the Royal School of Mines in 1901. On gaining his A.R.S.M. in metallurgy in 1904, Mr. Pearse worked as an assistant to the late George T. Holloway, and in 1905 he accompanied H.T. Burls to West Virginia, to prospect for oil and coal.
In 1906 he was appointed metallurgist and chemist to Venesta, Ltd., visiting India in the following two years. From 1909 to 1911 he was engaged in erecting plant at the Hungarian Tin Smelting Works, Budapest, and in 1912 went to Nigeria as metallurgist and local manager to the Niger Company at Naraguta.
Mr. Pearse left the service of the Niger Co. in 1917, to work tin deposits on his own account, in partnership with Messrs. Slimmand and Robinson, and in 1920 he also visited properties in East Africa. Returning to England in 1921, he took a course in oil technology at the Royal School of Mines. In 1923 he undertook investigations in Newfoundland for the British Admiralty, and later that year joined the Intelligence and Publications department of the Imperial Mineral Resources Bureau. In 1925 he was appointed demonstrator and lecturer in the Department of Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines, a position which he held until his death 27 years later.
Mr. Pearse was elected a Student of the Institution in 1904, and was transferred to Associate Membership in 1908 and to Membership in 1916.
Vol. 62, Trans I.M.M., 1952-53, pp.259-60
