Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/272

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Pearson
258
Fender

Barking; the new and important churches of St. Michael, Croydon (1880), and St. John, Upper Norwood (1881); the building of St. Peter's Home, Kilburn, and various schools. He did little work at Oxford, only additions to a hospital in the suburb of Cowley and the reredos at New College; but at Cambridge he carried out extensions at Sidney Sussex and Emmanuel Colleges, and did a similar task at the university library, where the existing fragment of the fifteenth-century gateway was cleverly incorporated.

It is impossible to give here a complete list of Pearson's works, but the following entirely new churches are worthy of special notice: St. Barnabas and All Saints at Hove, Brighton (the latter with a striking tower); St. Matthew at St. Leonards-on-Sea; St. Stephen, Bournemouth; High Cliffe, near Winchester; All Saints, Torquay (St. Matthias in the same town was only remodelled by Pearson); Sutton-Veney, Chute Forest, Porton, and Laverstoke all in Wiltshire; Oakhill, Somerset; St. James, Weybridge; Titsey, near Godstone; Hersham, Surrey; Freeland, Oxfordshire (with vicarage and school); Daylesford, Worcestershire; Norley, Winnington, and Thurstaston in Cheshire; Daybrook, near Nottingham; Wentworth, for the Earl of Fitzwilliam; Darlington; Cullercoats, for the Duke of Northumberland; and two churches in the Isle of Man, Kirkbraddan, and St. Matthew, Douglas. St. John, Redhill, was practically rebuilt by Pearson, as was also the church at Chiswick. Pearson made a complete design for Brisbane Cathedral, under the instructions of Bishop Webber, his former employer at Red Lion Square; this was opened in 1901.

In Scotland Pearson's only works were the Glenalmond infirmary and a new church at Ayr. In Wales, besides the church already mentioned, he designed those of Solva, Port Talbot, and Tretower. His principal domestic works not already mentioned were St. Peter's Convalescent Home at Woking, a residence for the Hon. C. Lawley at Exminster, and two others at Rustington, Sussex, and Great Warley near Brentwood, besides numerous vicarages in different parts of the country. He designed a mausoleum at Tunbridge Wells and a chapel in Byzantine style for the cemetery at Malta.

Pearson was fully engaged in work to the end of his life, and, dying after a short illness at 13 Mansfield Street on 11 Dec. 1897, was honoured with a funeral in Westminster Abbey. He married, in 1863, Jemima, daughter of Henry Curwen Christian (she died in 1865); by her he had one son, Frank Loughborough Pearson, who was for many years intimately associated with his father's work, and has continued after his death the additions to Wakefield Cathedral, the north-western tower of Chichester Cathedral, and the building in progress at Truro Cathedral.

A good portrait of Pearson was painted in oils by Mr. W. W. Ouless, R.A., and is now in the possession of Mr. Frank Pearson. He was a man of moderate height and pleasant aspect, with a full beard and moustache and gentle expressive eyes. Having few interests outside his art he gave his whole mind to it, was intensely industrious, and exceptionally modest. Though far from unsociable he was unusually retiring. Unlike many of his brother-architects, he never wrote or lectured on the subject of his art. From the time when he first started his work in London he never lived in the country; his first office was changed for one in Delahay Street, Westminster, and before he took his final office and residence in Mansfield Street he had for a time a home in Harley Street.

[John E. Newberry's articles in Architectural Review, vol. i. 1897; Royal Inst. Brit. Arch. Journal, 1897-8, v. 113; private information.]

P. W.


PEMBROKE, thirteenth Earl of. [See Herbert George Robert Charles, 1850–1895.]

PENDER, Sir JOHN (1815–1896), pioneer of submarine telegraphy, born on 10 Sept. 1816, was son of James Pender, of the Vale of Leven, Dumbartonshire, and Marion Mason. He was educated at the high school of Glasgow, where he received a gold medal for a design, and after a successful career as a merchant in textile fabrics in Glasgow and Manchester he made the extension of submarine telegraphy his principal study. On the formation of the first Atlantic Cable Company in 1856, Pender was one of the original 345 contributors of 1,000l. towards the expenses of the necessary experiments, and, as a director of that company, he shared the failures and disappointments which for eight years baffled all attempts to bring the scheme to a successful issue [see Bright, Sir Charles Tilston, Suppl.] The snapping of the cable of 1865 in mid-ocean during the historic voyage of the Great Eastern proved the financial ruin of the Atlantic Company. Many of the original supporters of the enterprise were dead, many more were utterly discouraged by repeated failures, and the abandonment of the project was imminent, when, through the efforts of Pender, Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin), Sir Charles Bright, and a few others,