Harry Charles Gearing
Harry Charles Gearing (1878-1945)
1946 Obituary [1]
HARRY CHARLES GEARING who was born in Southampton in 1878, was for twenty-six years' managing director, and later, chairman of Messrs. Gearings, Ltd., general engineers, of Capetown, and was well known in South Africa as a prominent engineering employer. After completing a five years' apprenticeship with Messrs. Cunningham and Gearing, in 1897, he found employment at the engineering works of Messrs. T. Richardson, West Hartlepool; but, in 1901, he returned to Messrs. Cunningham and Gearing and was admitted into partnership, becoming general manager in 1911.
His firm was reconstituted as a limited liability company under its present title in 1919, upon which he was made managing director. Mr. Gearing, who was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1905 and transferred to Membership in 1922, held many important positions in South African industry, including the chairmanship of the Cape Industrial Council for the Engineering Industry, which he occupied from 1929 to 1934. He was also a past-president of the South African Federated Chamber of Industries, and served as the first president of the South African Federation of Engineering and Metallurgical Associations.
His death occurred at Cape Town on 31st October 1945.