Godfrey Pearse

During his childhood and teenage years, he lived overseas with his family, mainly in Tasmania, as part of his father’s occupation with the British Empire. He was the son of Lord Charles John Pearse,[3] Governor of the Van Diemen’s Land Company (until 1869), and Lady Georgina Davis-Heatley Pearse. He was educated among his eight brothers and sisters under the instruction of rigorous British tutors until he was shipped back to England to attend superior education at a military academy under the supervision of his uncle General George Godfrey Pearse. From his military training, he developed his fencer career, and posterior fencing instructor talents, which allowed him to attend tournaments across Europe and America where he became acquainted with fencer Graeme Hammond.

Upon graduation, Godfrey Pearse military[4] assignments took him to the Indian subcontinent. The military career was not a good fit, so he dedicated his assignments to develop the most interesting socio-cultural field reports currently at the British Museum of London. Back in England, he dedicated his time to develop a lucrative career as a financial broker assisting import trades across the Commonwealth at Govett & Co. at 50 Threadneedle Street, City of London.

On 29 February 1872, he married Lady Cecilia Maria de Candia,[5] at St. Paul’s Cathedral, in Wilton Grove, London.[6] His wife was a British-Italian writer an arts socialite, and the daughter of the famous opera singer Mario and Giulia, which allowed Godfrey to mingle with the artistic elite of London and becoming absorbed by the Victorian sensual duality of the time, which eventually took him to enjoy a guarded bisexual life until the implementation of the 1885 Inverted Law, City of London Constitution of Homosexuality that was implemented until 1914. On May 25, 1886, Godfrey Robarts Pearse was charged under the Inverted Law with a fine of $2,000,[7] this incident was the scandal of his life that triggered the end of his marriage and seriously damaged his financial broker career. Eventually forcing him to leave London, and moving in 1891 to the South of France with his friend Alice Flavie Blanche Faucon, the daughter of a rich industrialist. He spent the last part of his life conducting casual business, and providing fencing instruction while living at the Château Du Faucon, not far from the Mediterranean cottage of his ex-wife at Bordighera on the Italian Riviera, there was a frequent visitor attending parties and working on books editing while enjoying the gay company of artists and writers among them Simeon Solomon, James McNeill Whistler, Frank Hird, and his partner Lord Ronald Grower.[8]

On 25 October 1926, on a trip back to England, while visiting his niece, Edith Romula Scott, he died at age 78 of complications of bronchial asthma and cardiac arrest at Draycott House.[9]

His legacy and best creations were the compilations of biographical data of the British Fencing community, his reports of India, and the cooperation in the literary production of his wife Cecilia Maria de Candia and co-writer Frank Hird.[10]