Alfred W. Pearce
Alfred W. Pearce ( -1886)
1886 Obituary[1]
"The Late Mr. A. W. Pearce, Dundee. — The death is announced of Mr. Alfred W. Pearce, of the firm of Pearce Brothers, engineers and shipbuilders, Dundee, the sad event being one of remarkable suddenness. It seems that, up to the time of his preparing to leave his house at Broughty Ferry for Dundee, after breakfast on Monday morning, the deceased was in his usual health; just then, however, he was suddenly seized with paralysis and became utterly prostrated. He never rallied, and died at six o’clock on Tuesday morning. Mr. Pearce was born in Cornwall, but when quite a young man he settled, in Dundee, to which town his mother belonged. Entering the service of Messrs. Kinmond, Hutton, and Steel, he served his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer, and having completed it, he left for Hull, where he was employed some time as a draughtsman. He subsequently took a situation in an engineering establishment in the north of France, and from that he went to Portsmouth Dockyard, where he obtained an appointment to take charge of the Drawing Office. In or about the year 1858, he returned to Dundee and entered into partnership with the late Mr. William W. Neish, the firm being Pearce and Neish, engineers, by whom a very successful business was carried on over a period of seven or eight years, when Mr. Neish retired. Mr. Henry Jones Pearce was then received as a partner, and up to the present the business has been carried on under the title of Pearce Brothers. Both in the home and foreign centres of the textile industries, the firm’s name has long had a very high reputation, on account of the excellence of the engines and the jute, flax, and hydraulic machinery turned out of Lilybank Foundry. About four years ago Messrs. Pearce Brothers became iron shipbuilders as well as engineers, and in that department they also took a high position. No more honourable man of business than the deceased could be named, for, in all that he or his firm undertook, the strictest integrity was observed. Mr. Pearce enjoyed the most cordial relations with his workmen, who accorded to him their warmest respect for the sympathy and interest which he displayed in their welfare. He was fifty-nine years of age at his death, and he has left a widow and family to mourn their great loss."