A letter from Edmund Wentworth Pearce ... to a noble lord containing a systematic and detailed account of unparalleled atrocities acted by Capt. Thomas Pearce ... lately a prisoner in the King's Bench : comprehending some account of the author's sufferings as a perfectly sane man, at the two insane houses of Bethnal Green.

  • Pearce, Edmund Wentworth.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter from Edmund Wentworth Pearce ... to a noble lord containing a systematic and detailed account of unparalleled atrocities acted by Capt. Thomas Pearce ... lately a prisoner in the King's Bench : comprehending some account of the author's sufferings as a perfectly sane man, at the two insane houses of Bethnal Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    21/110 (page 15)
    thoughts of making the unfortunate woman his wife, who, I really believe, had placed upon Mr. Cox all the regard of which she was capable, who now fell into despair, and died in a dreadful state. Mr. Cox was a man in some little com- parative opulence of condition—T. P. probably thought, that by making the discovery alluded to, he should secure some- thing like a future iuterest with Cox, in case of his own uture distress : this was the case—he some years afterwards asked and obtained. And here it was, that T. P. was very frequently out till two or three o'clock in the morning, amongst bad company, then coming home tipsy, and bitterly com- plaining of the assistance he gave to those belonging to him. We now removed to Ranelagh-Street, Pimlico. Here it was, that T. P. continued to pay his attentions to every servant girl in the neighbourhood, of decent appearance. Here it was that from standing quile undrest at his bed room window, which faced those of Mr. Britton, in Lower Giosvenor-Place, for the purpose of showing himself to that gentleman's daughters and servant maids, he received a visit from Mr. Britton, who repeatedly called him ever} thing but a gentle- man, but which T. P. very quietly put into his pocket. Here it was, that, from his tale of distress to the present Right Hod. Karl of Ashburnham, then Lord St. Asaph, that noble- man agreed to raise, and did raise, a subscription for him, to the amount, 1 believe, of about £50 : the gratitude he met with in T. P. was his observing, that he dared to say, that much more had been received on part of Lord St. Asaph, who, he supposed, had kept the overplus fur some kept girl that his Lordship took care of. While we lived in Ranelagh-Street, a widow lady, of very pretty fortune, conceived an attachment for my 'brother, Capt. James Pearce, who told T. P. of it.^-The use the latter mad* of this information, was to write anonymous letters to the lady in question, making out Captain James Pearce every thing shocking and contemptible, and earnestly advising her tp have nothing to do with biro, though he knew Capt. J.