Subject

Portrait and equestrian painter. Our picture source gives a biography of his life.

He was born on 16 November 1819, the son of Stephen Pearce (1780-1850) and Anne Pearce née Whittington (1778-1871). He was baptised on 17 December 1819 at St Martin in the Fields Church and the baptismal register shows that the family lived at 29 King's Mews. His father was a clerk in the Department of the Horse.

In the 1841 census he is shown living with his parents in The Royal Mews, Pimlico. The 1851 census shows him as an artist portrait painter living at 55 Berners Street, Marylebone, with his widowed mother and a female domestic servant. 

On 13 April 1858 he married Matilda Jane Cheswright (1832-1927) at Christ Church, Paddington. The marriage register shows his profession as an artist, living at 25 Queen Ann Street, whilst her address was recorded as 4 Sussex Terrace, Hyde Park. They had six children: Henry Stephen Pearce (1859-1860), Stephen Spencer Pearce (1860-1933), Henry Langley Dixon Pearce (1862-1933), Francis Barrow Pearce (1866-1926), Charles Ross Pearce (b.1868) and Wilson Bennie Manly Pearce (1872-1930).

The 1861 census shows him as a portrait painter living at 54 Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, with his wife, their son Stephen Spencer Pearce, his mother, a nurse, a cook and a housemaid. He was still there at the time of the 1871 census with his wife, their two sons: Francis B. Pearce & Charles R. Pearce, his mother, a nurse, a cook and two housemaids.

The census of 1881 confirms him still at 54 Queen Anne Street, Marylebone with his wife, their son William B. M. Pearce and three female domestic servants. In the 1891 census he is shown as living on his own means at 'St Heliers', Grange Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, with his wife, their two sons: Francis B. Pearce & Wilson B. M. Pearce, together with a cook and two housemaids.

Electoral registers from 1900 show him at 44 Sussex Gardens, Paddington and he died there, aged 84 years, on 31 January 1904. Probate was granted to his widow and Charles Ross Pearce on 12 March 1904 and his effects initially totalled £3,456-2s-11d, but were subsequently re-sworn to a new total of £5,853-14s-5d.