Hugh Pearson

Hugh Nicholas Pearson (1776–1856) was an English cleric, Dean of Salisbury from 1823. He was connected with the Clapham Sect. Life The son of Hugh Pearson of Lymington, he matriculated at St John's College, Oxford in 1796, and graduated B.A. in 1800. As a student he was introduced to Isaac Crouch of St Edmund Hall, by a recommendation from Thomas Haweis. He then acted as curate to Richard Cecil in Chobham, and to John Venn in Clapham. In 1802 Pearson was ordained priest by Brownlow North; Henry Venn the younger recorded that he was nearly rejected, having praised a work of William Wilberforce. He obtained his M.A. in 1803. He spent time in Clapham in 1803, and also 1804–7. Poor health affected Pearson's ability to work, from 1809. In 1812 he was given the living of Sandford, in the gift of the Duke of Marlborough. He owed this preferment to Ann Kennicott, whom he had met at Windsor where he had been living for his health, and with whom he was linked until her death in 1830, being one of her executors. He resided at Iffley, and his location just outside Oxford led to a college office of proctor at St John's. Shortly he was part of a group of leading evangelicals who set up the Oxfordshire Bible Society.