Arthur Warren Kendall Peirce (sometimes misspelled Pierce) was the son of Warren Peirce and his wife Anna, born Hasting. He received his high school education at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and his technical education by home study and practical experience in the engineering departments of electrical companies. He was initially associated with the Engineer's Department of the Thomson-Houston Electrical Company in Lynn, Massachusetts. Thereafter he was appointed as assistant engineer, first at the Crocker-Wheeler Electrical Company in New York City and Ampere, New Jersey, and then at Cumner, Craig & Co. of Boston, Massachusetts. Later he became an instructor in electrical engineering at the International Correspondence Schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was elected a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1905 and was also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Peirce came to the Witwatersrand in or just before 1897. He was employed as an electrician at Simmer & Jack Company until July 1897, and then at Knights Deep until May 1898, when he became chief electrician of the General Electric Power Company in South Africa, a post he held until 1906. In addition he worked as a consulting electrical engineer to the Consolidated Goldfields of South Africa. He became a member of the South African Society of Electrical Engineers soon after its formation in May 1897 and in August that year was elected on its management committee. Before the society ceased to exist at the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in October 1899 he read two papers before its members, on "Three-phase working" (December 1897) and "Electrical pumps and pumping" (December 1898). He also contributed a paper on underground hoisting problems on the Witwatersrand to the Transactions of the American Society of Electrical Engineers in 1903.

Shortly after the war, in 1903, Peirce resided in Germiston, but by 1906 was living in Johannesburg. That year he visited England and in February 1907, following the announcement of the amalgamation of the Victoria Falls and Vereeniging power schemes, delivered a paper on "The advantage of purchased power" before the South African Association of Engineers. He argued that the purchase of power from an outside source would be more economical for mining companies than installing their own electric plants. Papers such as this did much to facilitate the replacement of steam-driven plant by electrically driven machinery in the mining industry, and thus helped to create a need for central power stations.

Peirce became a member of the Transvaal Institute of Mechanical Engineers in February 1904 and served on its council from 1907 to his death in 1909. He was also an early member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, and an associate of the Chemical, Metallurgical and Mining Society of South Africa. At the time of his death he was station superintendent at the Germiston branch of the Victoria Falls Power Company. He died of food poisoning and malaria, contracted during a visit to Zululand. He was survived by his wife, Mary Louise, born Bonn, and two children.

List of sources:

Chemical, Metalllurgical and Mining Society of South Africa. Proceedings, Vol. 3, list of members.

Draper, J.R. The engineer's contribution: A history of the South African Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1892-1967. Johannesburg: South African Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1967.

Google scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za/ , publications by A.W.K. Peirce.

Journal of the Transvaal Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 1905-1910, Vol. 4-8.

National Archives Repository (TAB), Source MHG, Vol. 0, Ref. 13532: death notice, Arthur Warren Kendall Peirce.

Obituary: Arthur Warren Kendall Peirce. Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6660365

Obituary notice: A.W.K. Peirce. Journal of the Transvaal Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 1908/9, Vol. 7, p. 274.

Pask, T.P. An historical note of 1897. Transactions of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1930, Vol. 21(11), pp. 240-243.

South African Association for the Advancement of Science. Report, 1903, 1905/6, lists of members.

Williams, A.F. American engineers in South Africa. Kimberley, 1902.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2025-08-30 11:10:23