History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

2 7 o THE PEARSONS
years after a visit to Portugal for the benefit of his health. An incident is
worth recording. Two ladies of his own name, who believed him to be their
nearest if not only relation, lived near to him. He managed their affairs ; they
regarded him as their heir, and so certain were they that he would succeed as
heir-at-law that the survivor left only an informal Will in his favour. He was
taking possession when another came forward, claiming to be a nearer relative
to the deceased. He had no evidence to prove it, and as the case was tried
it was on the point of being decided for Mr Pearson, when the latter, making
a final search in his own family papers, found that his rival was right. He at
once stopped the legal proceedings on the ground of this discovery, and the
other took the property. As coal was found under it some years later, it
changed hands for ^90,000. His eldest grandson and heir (General Hooke
Pearson, C.B.), when he related this, added, " Still I would rather my grand-
father had acted as he did."
The Pearson family had been friends of the Johnstones for ten or fifteen
years. They lived two miles from Wolverhampton, and were related to Dr
Withering of Edgbaston Hall and to Mr Hector, Samuel Johnson's friend, in
the Old Square. In the Life of Dr WitJiering he is described as " paying a
visit to his esteemed relatives, Mr and Mrs Pearson of Tettenhall Wood ; in
that sweet retirement he for a few months benefitted by every assiduity which
the most refined friendship could suggest ; and which he again experienced at
a later period, when the same amiable family so materially conduced both to
his pleasure and comfort in a foreign country."
The Pearsons also paid many visits to Edgbaston Hall, where Edward
used to meet them, and, in 1791, the eldest daughter was staying in Moseley
(two miles off) when her relative's house was besieged for three days by the
Birmingham mob, because Dr Withering was a Liberal and advocated the
admission of Romanists and Nonconformists to the rights all now equally
enjoy. It was only saved by the arrival of the military. Much damage was
done, but, like Edward Johnstone, he did not apply for compensation from the
already over-taxed town. His medical theories were opposed to the Johnstones
on the subject of fever, and his mode of counteracting a tendency to consumption
was low diet and bleeding. His relative, Mr Pearson, had suffered
so much from this system as a delicate child that, after taking his degree of
M.A., his health never enabled him to follow a profession, and as in the summer
of 1792 he had consumptive symptoms it was arranged that, accompanied by
his wife and daughters and two elder sons, he should join Dr Withering in
spending a winter in Portugal.
The Pearsons arrived at Edgbaston Hall from Tettenhall, Sept. 14, 1792,
and set off the next day as far as Woicester, whither they went by slow stages
to Malvern, Cheltenham, Bath, Clifton, and Teignmouth to Falmouth, and
embarked, Oct. 24, on the Lisbon packet. Byron described its discomfort
some years later, and as the Barbary corsairs were then the terror of the
Mediterranean, so that Portugal was the favourite resort for English invalids,
every vessel bound in the autumn " for the Tagus was inconveniently crowded