Tom Hatherley Pear
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Tom Hatherley Pear | |
|---|---|
| Born | 22 March 1886 Walpole, Norfolk |
| Died | 14 May 1972 (aged 86) |
| Occupation | Psychologist |
| Spouse | Catherine |
| Children | 4, including: Richard Pear |
Tom Hatherley Pear (22 March 1886 – 14 May 1972) was a British psychologist who was the first professor of psychology in England and served as president of the British Psychological Society.[1]
Career
Pear became Professor of Psychology in the University of Manchester, Fellow of King's College London and president of the British Psychological Society. He was the author of several books on psychology including studies of human conversation, and the development of memory and skills. He was also Secretary of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1920 to 1924.
Pear was actively involved in the system of assisting refugees and the family home became a safe house during the Kindertransport. Many of those who passed through on their way to the US or who stayed in the UK became long term family friends. A professor from Utrecht was found a lecturing post at Manchester University, before he too went to the US.
During WWI Pear, who had just returned from studying in Würzburg, became a Conscientious Objector, and served at Maghull Hospital, examining and then treating what was then known as 'Shell Shock', then 'Battle Psychosis', and is now acknowledged as PTSD. He was in regular correspondence with, and visited W. H. R. Rivers at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were patients.[2]
In 1917 Pear and co-author the Australian-born anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith show had worked with Ronald Rows at Maghull Military Hospital, proposed in Shell-Shock and its Lessons the idea that ordinary people could benefit from techniques used in treating the soldiers: 'If the lessons of war are to be truly beneficial, much more extensive application must be made of these methods, not only for our soldiers now, but also for our civilian population for all time.'[3]
