Biography
Pearsall was born at Clifton in Bristol on 14 March 1795 into a rich, Quaker family. His father, Richard Pearsall (died 1813), was an army officer and amateur musician. He was privately educated.
Pearsall's mother, born Elizabeth Lucas, managed in 1816 to buy the Pearsall family house at Willsbridge, Gloucestershire from her brother-in-law, Thomas Pearsall, after the failure of an iron mill which had been in the family since 1712. However, Pearsall sold the house in 1837 after his mother died. The iron mill was converted by others into a flour mill, which still stands.
Pearsall married in 1817 Harriet Eliza Hobday, daughter of a once-famous portrait painter, William Armfield Hobday (1771-1831). They had four children, but separated finally in 1842. He initially practised as a barrister based in Bristol, but on suffering a mild stroke in 1825, he went with his family first to Mainz, then to Karlsruhe (1830-42), and later to Schloss Wartensee near Rorschach in Switzerland, where he remained until 1854. After falling ill at nearby St Gallen, where he had been living, he was taken back to Schloss Wartensee, where he was received by his son and estranged wife, and was nursed by his daughter Philippa. He died at Wartensee on 5 August 1856, and was buried in the vault of the chapel at the castle. When the chapel was deconsecrated in 1957, his remains were removed and reinterred at the Roman Catholic church at Wilen-Wartegg.
Read more about this topic: Robert Lucas De Pearsall
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