Pearce, Zachary, Bishop of Rochester (1690 -1774)

Zachary Pearce was the son of John Pearce, a distiller in the Parish of St Giles, High Holborn, who made a fortune and bought an estate at Little Ealing. He was ducated at a school in Great Ealing, at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, 1710. While at Trinity he wrote a paper in The Guardian and two in The Spectator. In 1716, he published an edition of Cicero's De oratore at the University Press and was made a Fellow of his College. Ordained in 1718, he became Rector of Stapleford Abbots in Essex, and in 1720 Rector of St Bartholomew's. He married in February 1722, Mary, daughter of Benjamin Adams, a rich distiller. All their children died in infancy. In 1724 he was Vicar of St Martin in the Fields, and was made a D.D. of Lambeth. As Dean of Winchester in 1739, and Bishop of Bangor in 1748, he visited his diocese annually till 1753, when his health began to fail, and filled all vacancies with Welshmen. In 1755 he was translated to Rochester, which he held with the Deanery of Westminster. In 1761 he refused the See of London, and asked to be allowed to resign from both his Bishopric and his Deanery. He left his library to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and his manuscripts to his chaplain. There are about 6,000 printed books of his at Westminster, about half of which are foreign, together with a manuscript author catalogue of 1758, with later additions and deletions.