Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearsall, Richard
PEARSALL, RICHARD (1698–1762), dissenting divine, was born at Kidderminster 29 Aug. 1698. His eldest sister, Mrs. Hannah Housman, extracts from whose diary he published, stimulated his religious temper. Another sister, Phœbe, was married to Joseph Williams, esq., of Kidderminster, whose ‘Diary’ was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Richard was educated at a dissenting academy at Tewkesbury under Samuel Jones. Joseph Butler, author of the ‘Analogy,’ and Secker (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) were among his fellow-students. He was admitted to the ministry among the dissenters before 1721 (Evang. Mag. xviii. 377).
He was ordained at Bromyard in Herefordshire, and succeeded Samuel Philips (d. 1721), whose daughter he married, in the pastorate of the presbyterian (now independent) congregation there. He removed in 1731 to Warminster in Wiltshire, where he apparently ministered to a body of seceders who charged the original presbyterian society with Arianism. From 1747 until 1762 he was minister of the large independent church at Taunton, Somerset. He died at Taunton on 10 Nov. 1762. In the ‘Evangelical Magazine’ (xviii. 377) there is a fine portrait, engraved by Ridley.
Pearsall as a religious writer was a feeble imitator of James Hervey (1714–1758) [q. v.], who gave him much encouragement (cf. Hervey, Theron and Aspasio, vol. iii. letter 9). Apart from a few tracts, sermons, and letters, Pearsall's works were: 1. ‘The Power and Pleasure of the Divine Life exemplified in the late Mrs. Housman of Kidderminster, Worcester, as extracted from her own papers,’ London, 1744; new edit. 1832, London (edited by Charles Gilbert). 2. ‘Contemplations on the Ocean, Harvest, Sickness, and the Last Judgment, in a series of letters to a friend,’ London, 1753; Nottingham, 1801; Evesham, 1804. 3. ‘Meditations on Butterflies: philosophical and devotional, in two letters to a lady,’ London, 1758. 4. ‘Reliquiæ Sacræ, or Meditations on Select Passages of Scripture and Sacred Dialogues between a Father and his Children; published from his MSS., designed for the press by Thomas Gibbons, D.D.,’ London, 1765 (only one volume published).
Some poems by Pearsall, one of which appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ March 1736, are printed in ‘Extracts from the Diary, Meditations, and Letters of Mr. Joseph Williams [Pearsall's brother-in-law],’ Shrewsbury, 1779.
[Memoir by Gibbons, prefixed to Reliquiæ Sacræ (supra); Mrs. Housman's Diary (supra), pp. 68, 82, 90, and editor's preface to 1832 reprint; Mayo Gunn's Nonconformists in Warminster; Evangelical Mag. xviii. 377; Diary of Joseph Williams of Kidderminster; Middleton's Biographia Evangelica, iv. 390; Jerome Murch's Presbyterian and Baptist Churches in the West, pp. 86, 193; Bogue and Bennett, iv. 293; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, i. 352; information kindly sent by the Rev. W. B. Row, minister of the Independent Church at Bromyard, and by Mr. W. Frank Morgan of Warminster.]