Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearson, John Norman
PEARSON, JOHN NORMAN (1787–1865), divine, son of John Pearson (1758–1826) [q. v.], born 7 Dec. 1787, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained the Hulsean prize in 1807. He then took orders, and acted as chaplain to the Marquis of Wellesley until the Church Missionary Society appointed him, in 1826, the first principal of its newly founded missionary college at Islington. In 1839 he was appointed vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells, a position which he resigned in 1853. He afterwards lived in retirement, doing occasional duty for the surrounding clergy, at Bower Hall, near Steeple Bumpstead in Essex, until his death in October 1865. He married Harriet, daughter of Richard Puller of London and sister of Sir Christopher Puller, by whom he had a numerous family. His sons Sir John and Charles Henry are separately noticed.
There is a three-quarter length portrait of Pearson in oils, dated 1843, but unsigned, in the hall of the Missionary College in Upper Street, Islington.
Pearson's works are: 1. ‘A Critical Essay on the Ninth Book of Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses,’ Cambridge, 1808. 2. ‘Christ Crucified; or some Remarkable Passages of the Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, devotionally and practically considered,’ London, 1826, 12mo. 3. ‘Life of Archbishop Leighton,’ prefixed to an edition of his ‘Works’ in 1829. 4. ‘The Candle of the Lord uncovered; or the Bible rescued from Papal Thraldom by the Reformation,’ London, 1835, 8vo. 5. ‘The Faith and Patience of the Saints exhibited in the Narrative of the Sufferings and the Death … of I. Lefevere;’ a new translation, 1839, 12mo. 6. ‘Psalms and Hymns chiefly designed for Public Worship,’ London, 1840, 12mo. 7. ‘The Days in Paradise,’ London, 1854, 12mo. He also published several volumes of sermons.
[Obituary notice in Gent. Mag. 1865, ii. 792.]