1842–1930

Introduction

Born: Jan­ua­ry 3, 1842, Cam­borne, Corn­wall.

Died: Jan­ua­ry 1, 1930, Lon­don, Eng­land.

portrait

Biography

After a false start in me­di­cine, Pearse (whose fa­ther had the same name) was edu­cat­ed for the Wes­ley­an min­is­try, which he entered in 1863.

After leav­ing Dids­bu­ry Col­lege, his first post was in Leeds. Ov­er the next two de­cades, the Me­tho­dist Con­fer­ence ap­point­ed him to min­ist­ries in Brix­ton Hill, Ips­wich, Bed­ford, High­bu­ry, West­min­ster, Launces­ton, and Bris­tol.

In 1886, he de­cid­ed not to re­tire to Corn­wall, but in­stead ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion of Hugh Price Hughes to join him in the Lon­don West Cen­tral Wes­ley­an Mis­sion. This re­sult­ed in ex­ten­sive fund rais­ing tours abroad to pub­li­cize the Mis­sion’s aims and achieve­ments. These tours brought him into con­tact with Corn­ish com­mu­ni­ties in North Am­eri­ca, Aus­tra­la­sia and South Af­ri­ca.

After re­tir­ing from the Mis­sion in 1903, he con­tin­ued to preach, lec­ture and write, spend­ing more and more time in Corn­wall to­wards the end of his days. Four months be­fore his death, he was made a bard of Gor­seth Ke­now (the Corn­ish Gor­sedd), at Carn Brea, tak­ing the name Pys­ca­jor a Dus (Fish­er of Men)

Pearse’s hymns were most­ly writ­ten in Lon­don in 1875. In his lit­tle book The Child Je­sus, each hymn was sug­gest­ed by one of a ser­ies of car­toons il­lus­trat­ing the life of Christ, pub­lished by the Wes­ley­an-Me­tho­dist Sun­day School Un­ion.

Works

Sources

Lyrics

If you know Pearse’s bu­ri­al place,