Stephen Forbes Pearson, co-founder of Star Refrigeration, has died peacefully aged 92.

According to a statement from Star Refrigeration, Dr Forbes Pearson is survived by his wife Jean and his five children, after passing at Mearns View care home on Thursday 14th March 2024.

Forbes was born in Glasgow on 25th June 1931 and was a “precocious child” who loved learning. He considered becoming a doctor like his grandfather, Charles Stewart, but instead studied mechanical engineering at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1953.

Following graduation Forbes enrolled at the Royal College of Science and Technology in Glasgow to complete a thesis on a valve design for reciprocating compressors under the supervision of Dr Timmy Brown. The pair remained colleagues, working together on a range of technical developments in refrigeration, and after completing his PhD Forbes spent three years developing techniques for freezing fish on trawlers to enhance quality and extend shelf life.

Founding Star Refrigeration

In April 1959 Forbes married Jean Lyall and returned to Glasgow, setting up home in Maryhill and joining his father at L Sterne and Co’s Crown Iron Works. Forbes and two of his colleagues, Bert Campbell and Anthony Brown, decided that there was plenty of industrial work available in Scotland and so they set up Star Refrigeration Ltd in 1970, initially from the Pearson family home in Maryhill, moving a few months later to Thornliebank Industrial Estate on the south side of Glasgow. 

Star Refrigeration said it quickly gained a reputation for “innovative” but “robust and reliable” engineering, mainly founded on the technical developments led by Forbes in his role as technical director. The range of his novel ideas matched the breadth of his scientific interests and included new system configurations such as the low pressure receiver, new control methods, new components including ball valves, tube ice makers, evaporative condensers, electronic logic controllers, high efficiency water chillers and novel freezing techniques.

Forbes was reportedly one of the first people in the world to recognise the possibilities of blending organic chemicals to create a refrigerant fluid mixture with particularly favourable properties for unusual or extreme operating conditions. This pioneering work led to the award by the International Institute of Refrigeration of their Gustav Lorentzen medal in 2003, only the second time that this international accolade, “the Nobel prize for Refrigeration”, was presented.

Forbes’ full obituary can be found here.