Robert Lucas Pearsall

Robert Lucas Pearsall (14 March 1795 – 5 August 1856) was an English composer mainly of vocal music, including an elaborate setting of “In dulci jubilo” and the richly harmonic part song Lay a garland of 1840, both still often performed today. He spent the last 31 years of his life abroad, at first in Germany, then at a castle he bought in Switzerland. Biography Pearsall was born at Clifton in Bristol on 14 March 1795 into a wealthy, originally Quaker family. His father, Richard Pearsall (died 1813), was an army officer and an amateur musician. Pearsall was privately educated. In 1816 Pearsall’s mother, Elizabeth (née Lucas), bought the Pearsall family’s home at Willsbridge, Gloucestershire, from her brother-in-law, Thomas Pearsall. Thomas had been ruined by the failure of the iron mill that had been the family’s business since 1712. After the death of his mother in 1837, Pearsall sold Willsbridge House again, but although he would never live there again, he regularly chose to be known in publications as ‘Pearsall of Willsbridge’. As for Willsbridge Mill, it was later converted into a flour mill and it stands to this day. Pearsall married Harriet Eliza Hobday in 1817. She was the d