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England alive'. Having made a good recovery back home, Pearson joined the Egyptian Army and proceeded
to Khartoum, where he was appointed Assistant Director of Surveys to Colonel the Hon. Milo Talbot, whom
he soon afterwards succeeded as Director. It was in this latter capacity that Pearson truly excelled himself,
being ‘untiring in his efforts to promote the welfare of the Sudan and its people’ in a region where he had
‘great influence amongst the sedentary and nomad tribes in whose countries he so successfully labour for
upwards of fifteen years'. Highlights of this period included his part in delimiting the boundary between the
Belgian Congo and the Sudan in 1910, following the reversion of the Lado Enclave to the Sudan Government
on the death of King Leopold of the Belgians in the previous year, for which he was ‘offered a Belgian
decoration which regulations prohibited him from accepting’, and his hard work in triangulating in Kordofan,
where in less than three months in 1911 he fixed upwards of 100 places over an area of 20,000 square miles.
He was awarded the 4th class of the Turkish Order of Osmanieh (London Gazette 22 December 1911).
Inevitably, however, Pearson’s agenda was rarely free of the threat of seeing action and, as a recently
promoted Major, he participated in the expedition against the Adonga Anuak and Beir tribes in the south-
east Sudan, under Major Leveson, DSO., in 1912. Casualties amounted to two British officers, three Native
officers and 42 rank and file killed, before the conclusion of hostilities on the Abyssinian border, and just 13
British officers, seconded to the Egyptian Army, qualified for the subsequent issuance of "Sudan 1912" clasp.
Pearson also added to his laurels by taking the opportunity of surveying the Sobat and Pibor rivers, an account
of which work was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.
In the following year he was responsible for mounting an expedition to explore the unknown
waterways of the Bahr el Ghazal and Bahr el Arab rivers, in addition to despatching Captain Kelly, R.E., to
carry out further survey work along the Sudan-Abyssinian border, while in 1914 he was principally occupied
with the building of the great dam at Makwar and the high-level canal in Gezira.
During WW1 Pearson was employed on a variety of special duties, firstly in connection with the
defences of Sudan itself, and also, as an Intelligence Officer, in dealing with plans for the reconquest of Darfur,
while in January 1916 he proceeded in charge of a survey expedition to Lake Tsana in Abyssinia. He was
Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 25 October 1916) and was awarded the 3rd class of the Egyptian
Order of the Nile (London Gazette 7 December 1917). On his return from the Lake Tsana project, Pearson
was sent to Jeddah as a Liaison Officer with the Arab Forces, which post had earlier been occupied by
Lawrence of Arabia, and was rewarded by King Hussein with the 2nd class of the Order of El Nahda, a rare
distinction for a British Officer; and during the course of 1917, Pearson became the recipient of another
unusual honour, namely that of the 2nd class of the Order of the Star of Ethiopia, for his services in conveying
the Empress to the Regent at Adis Ababa. Later in that year he participated in the organisation of a training
camp at Ismailia, in conjunction with the French, following which he was ordered to join the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force in Palestine, where for short periods he was onetime Governor of both Jaffa and
Jerusalem.
In early 1918, having been awarded the DSO and again been Mentioned in Despatches (London
Gazette 17 September 1917), Pearson was appointed C.R.E. of the Desert Mounted Corps and was involved
in the planning of the final offensive against the Turks, not least in providing training for assorted bridge and
railway demolition squads. He subsequently served through the battle of Megiddo, the advance on Damascus,
the occupation of Riyaq and Tripoli, and the advance on Aleppo, and was given the Brevet of Lieutenant-
Colonel and won another "mention" (London Gazette 7 October 1918). Then in 1919, for his work in keeping
open over 500 miles of indifferent roads and tracks inside Arabia, he won his fourth and final "mention" of
the War (London Gazette 24 March 1919).
Returning to his duties as Director of Surveys in the Sudan, from late 1921 Pearson was employed as
the British Representative on the Anglo-French Commission for the delimitation of the frontier between
Sudan and the Wada area of French Equatorial Africa. But, as noted by his R.E. obituarist, he continued to
work throughout the rainy season in Darfur, which ‘no doubt undermined his strong constitution, and he fell
victim to blackwater fever within a few weeks of the completion of this last strenuous task in December 1922.
He had been Director of Surveys ‘for nearly 20 years, and a glance at the map will show he had the most
strenuous task of all, the mapping of desert, forest, marsh and a maze of varying uncertain waterways, in
addition to more detailed work connected with land settlement and the like. He was a great hunter and a fine
athlete ... At Headquarters he was the life and soul of Khartoum society, the friend of all and the hero of
many ... England and the Royal Corps may well be proud of Hugh Pearson and the type he represented'.
Nor was he forgotten: ‘Over the border, on the far shore of the little lake at Umm Dafog, is a plot of
ground that is forever England, "The Grave of Colonel Pearson", Chairman of the Boundary Commission,
which was permanently ceded to Britain by France. Over this six feet of English earth, a small Union Jack
used to fly, and English visitors were invited by the French Administrator to open the gate of the zereeba
which surrounded it and proceed with him onto their own soil’ (Sudan Republic, by K. D. D. Henderson,
refers). Medals lacquered but otherwise generally good very fine unless otherwise stated (14)
£18000 - £20000