John Thomas Pearson (22 August 1801 – 5 March 1851) was a British surgeon who worked in the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

in India. He was also briefly the curator of the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Pearson received his MRCS in 1825 and became an assistant surgeon in Bengal in 1826 and rose to the rank of surgeon in 1841. While in Darjeeling, he took a keen interest in the local zoology, sending specimens to England for identification. '' Belomys pearsonii'' was named after him by his friend from medical student days,

J. E. Gray John Edward Gray, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoology, zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ...

, in 1842. '' Rhinolophus pearsonii'' was named after him by Horsfield in 1851. Pearson was made curator of the Asiatic Society in July 1833 and held the position until 1835 as a favour to James Prinsep. During this period he described the

hispid hare The hispid hare (''Caprolagus hispidus''), also called Assam rabbit and bristly rabbit, is a leporid native to South Asia, whose historic range extended along the southern foothills of the Himalayas. Today, its habitat is highly fragmented with an ...

and a new species of kingfisher, '' Pelargopsis amauroptera''. This was a period of flux at the Asiatic Society of Bengal and there were complaints from a Dr William Jameson that Pearson had not maintained the museum in order. He married Frances Fitzpatrick in Calcutta on 7 March 1827. He died at

Barrackpur Barrackpore (also known as Barrackpur) is a city and a municipality of urban Kolkata of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is also a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearson, John Thomas 1801 births 1851 deaths Medical doctors from Kolkata