Zachary Pearce

Right Reverend Zachary Pearce
Bishop of Rochester
Portrait by Edward Penny
Installed	1756
Term ended	1774
Predecessor	Joseph Wilcocks
Successor	John Thomas
Other post(s)	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

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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 Abbotts, 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:

• Cicero, Dialogi tres de oratore (1716)
• Longinus, De sublimitate commentarius (1724)
• Cicero, De officiis libri tres (1745)

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 (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21693 . Retrieved 4 June 2008.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. "Pearce, Zachariah (PR710Z)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
4. 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.

• Lives of Dr. Edward Pocock, the Celebrated Orientalist, by Dr. Twells; of Dr. Zachary Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, and of Dr. Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, by Themselves; and of the Rev. Philip Skelton, by Mr. Bundy (1818)
• Royal Society Biography ^{[ dead link ]}

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