Zachary Pearce

Zachary Pearce
Bishop of Rochester
Installed 1756
Term ended 1774
Predecessor Joseph Wilcocks
Successor John Thomas
Other posts Bishop of Bangor, Dean of Westminster
Personal details
Born 8 September 1690
Died 29 June 1774
Nationality English/British
Denomination Church of England
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge

Zachary Pearce, sometimes known as Zachariah (8 September 1690 – 29 June 1774), was an English Bishop of Bangor and Bishop of Rochester. He was a controversialist and a notable early critical writer defending John Milton,[1] attacking Richard Bentley's 1732 edition of Paradise Lost the following year.

Life

Pearce was born the son of Thomas or John Pearce, a distiller, in 1690 in the parish of St Giles, High Holborn. He first attended Great Ealing School.[2] and then Westminster School. He graduated BA from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1713/4 and MA in 1717.[3]

He was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1716–1720) [4] 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 St Batholemew, Royal Exchange (1720–1724) He was vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in 1726.[5] 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.[4] He was Dean of Westminster (1756–1768).

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1720.[6] Towards the end of Isaac Newton's life, Pearce assisted him on chronology[7]

There is a monument to Pearce in the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Bromley.[8] He had married Mary, daughter of Benjamin Adams, a distiller, of Holborn.

Works

The Miracles of Jesus Vindicated (1729) was written against Thomas Woolston. A Reply to the Letter to Dr. Waterland was against Conyers Middleton, defending Daniel Waterland; Pearce engaged in this controversy as a former student of William Wake.[9]

Other works were:

He also published sermons; he preached at the funeral of Sir Hans Sloane.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Christopher Ricks, Milton's Grand Style, p. 9.
  2. ↑ Hole, Robert (2004). "Pearce, Zachary (1690–1774)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 2008-06-04.
  3. ↑ "Pearce, Zachariah (PR710Z)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. 1 2 Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  5. ↑ St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square. Westminster.lovesguide.com. Retrieved on 2012-06-15.
  6. ↑ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660–2007". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  7. ↑ Academy Thomas Anson New. Shugborough.org.uk. Retrieved on 2012-06-15.
  8. ↑ Bromley. British-history.ac.uk (2003-06-22). Retrieved on 2012-06-15.
  9. ↑ David B. Ruderman, Connecting the Covenants: Judaism and the Search for Christian Identity in Eighteenth-Century England, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007 ISBN 0812240162, p. 47.
  10. ↑ Chelsea – (part 2 of 3) | British History Online. British-history.ac.uk (2003-06-22). Retrieved on 2012-06-15.
Church of England titles
Preceded by
Charles Naylor		 Dean of Winchester
1739–1748 		Succeeded by
Thomas Cheyney
Preceded by
Matthew Hutton		 Bishop of Bangor
1748–1756 		Succeeded by
John Egerton
Preceded by
Joseph Wilcocks		 Bishop of Rochester
1756–1774 		Succeeded by
John Thomas
Dean of Westminster
1756–1768
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