Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jervis, William Henley Pearson-
JERVIS, WILLIAM HENLEY PEARSON- (1813–1883), ecclesiastical historian of France, second son of Hugh Nicholas Pearson [q. v.], dean of Salisbury from 1823 to 1846, was born on 29 June 1813 at Oxford. In 1824 he was sent to a preparatory school at Mitcham, Surrey, whence he was removed two years later to Harrow School. He distinguished himself at Harrow, but, unfortunately, at the sacrifice of his health. In 1831 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, but a severe illness from spinal complaint threw him back a year in his course of study. He availed himself of the leisure thus forced upon him to cultivate a strong natural taste for music and singing. In June 1835 he graduated B.A. (M.A. 1838); in July of the following year he was ordained deacon, and in 1837 was instituted to the rectory of St. Nicholas, Guildford. He was appointed by his father, then dean of Salisbury, a prebendary of the collegiate church of Heytesbury, Wiltshire. In 1848 he married Martha Jervis, daughter of Osborne Markham, esq., son of the Archbishop of York. His wife's mother was a grand-niece of John Jervis, earl St. Vincent [q. v.], and on her death in 1865 Pearson assumed the surname of Jervis. Owing to the delicate state of his health, Jervis and his wife resided abroad for six years (November 1856 to July 1862), chiefly in the south of France and in Paris. Here he studied, in the archives of Pau, Bayonne, and other places, as well as in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the memoirs and documents illustrating the ecclesiastical history of France. The fruit of his labours appeared in 1872 in a book entitled ‘A History of the Church of France from the Concordat of Bologna to the Revolution,’ 2 vols. 8vo. Ten years later he published, as a sequel to this work, ‘The Gallican Church and the French Revolution,’ 8vo. A smaller work by him appeared in Murray's series of manuals, under the name of ‘The Student's History of France.’ The books collected by Jervis for his church history were subsequently presented by his widow to the London Library. He never quite rallied from the loss of his brother, Hugh Pearson, vicar of Sonning and canon of Windsor (1817–1882), and died on 27 Jan. 1883, in his seventieth year. He was buried in Sonning churchyard, near his brother. His widow died 8 March 1888.
[Guardian, 31 Jan. 1883, p. 168; Annual Register, 1883, pt. ii. p. 124; personal recollections of a relative.]