Background
Pearce was born the son of Thomas or John Pearce, a distiller, in 1690 in the parish of Street Giles, High Holborn.
Pearce was born the son of Thomas or John Pearce, a distiller, in 1690 in the parish of Street Giles, High Holborn.
He first attended Great Ealing School. He graduated Bachelor from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1713/4 and Master of Arts in 1717.
And then Westminster School. He was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1716–1720) and chaplain to the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield. Parker became his patron, to whom Pearce dedicated an edition of the de oratore of Cicero.
He became rector of Stapleford Abbots, Essex (1719–1722) and Street Batholemew, Royal Exchange (1720–1724) He was vicar of Street Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in 1726.
He was then Dean of Winchester in 1739, Bishop of Bangor in 1748, and Bishop of Rochester in 1756. In 1761 he turned down the position of bishop of London.
He was Dean of Westminster (1756–1768). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1720.
Towards the end of Isaac Newton"s life, Pearce assisted him on chronology
There is a monument to Pearce in the Church of Street Peter and Street Paul, Bromley.
He was a controversialist and a notable early critical writer defending John Milton, attacking Richard Bentley"s 1732 edition of Paradise Lost the following year.
Royal Society.