William Henry Perrow was educated at Truro, Cornwall, and in
1884 set up in business as an electrical engineer there. He installed electric
lighting and telephone equipment and also manufactured and repaired electrical
apparatus. In 1896 he came to the Witwatersrand as resident electrician to the
Knight Central Gold Mine, but resigned shortly afterwards owing to ill health.
Starting his own business once more he specialized in X-ray and electro-medical
work. From 1897 to 1901 he was resident electrical engineer to the Treasury
Gold Mines Company and later held similar positions with the Henry Nourse Gold
Mine Company and with its successor, Nourse Mines. He was responsible for the
electrification of the whole mining plant of the latter company, from which he
retired in 1916. He then settled in Cape Town and for a time was in business
with his son, Ewart Vivian Perrow, also an electrical engineer, under the name
W.H. Perrow and son.
Perrow became an associate member of the (British) Institution
of Electrical Engineers in 1908 and was elected a full member in 1916. He was
also one of the founders of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers
in 1909, and served as its president for 1917/8. In 1910 he published 'Notes on
the application of electricity to medicine and surgery, with special reference
to X-rays and high frequency currents' (Transactions
of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1909-1910, Vol.
1(4), pp. 81-), a paper that received the institute's gold medal award. A later
paper by him dealt with 'Bergonie's chair for obesity' (1915, Vol. 6(4), pp.
117-), while in his presidential address he described the early history of the
induction coil (1917, Vol. 8(2), pp. 26-).
Perrow was married to Elizabeth Annie, born Vivian, with
whom he had three sons and a daughter.
