A democrat by conviction, he combined a Puritan determination in carrying reforms with a gentle manner and a scrupulous respect for the traditional rules and courtesies of public debate.

Later on, coming into conflict with one of the masters, he was withdrawn by his father and sent first to a private tutor and then to King's College London, where he came under the influence of John Sherren Brewer and Frederick Denison Maurice.

[2] [3] In 1855, Pearson became lecturer in English language and literature at King's College, London, and shortly afterward was given the professorship in modern history.

In 1864, as a result of ill health and depressed by his failure to be appointed Oxford University's inaugural Chichele Professor of Modern History and his low salary at King's College, he took a year off in South Australia.

He attempted to establish a 640 acres (259 ha) sheep station near Mount Remarkable but was beaten by severe drought and returned to England.

Shortly afterwards, partly as a result of eyestrain and a lack of good students, he decided to return to Australia and combine a light literary life with farming.

[2][3] Pearson enjoyed the next three years on his farm at Haverhill, revelled in the hot, dry conditions, which suited his constitution, and hoped to obtain a professorship in the new University of Adelaide.

On 4 June 1874, and he created a university debating club, which recruited Alexander Sutherland, Alfred Deakin, William Shiels, H. B. Higgins and Theodore Fink.

He had advocated a progressive land tax in a public lecture and thus incurred the wrath of the moneyed interests, which all that supported the school, and Pearson decided to resign.

[3] The newly founded National Reform and Protection League of the period felt that here might be a valuable recruit and pressed Pearson to stand for parliament.

[2][3] Pearson retired from parliament in April 1892, declining to stand for election again, and began to work seriously on his book, National Life and Character: a Forecast.

[3] He is buried on the east side of the western path in Brompton Cemetery in London, midway between the north entrance and the central buildings.

Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Pearson to praise the book; Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone recommended it highly, and the late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing read it in January 1896.

Pearson argued that the "Black and Yellow" races were in the ascendant, as they were powered by population increase and, in the case of the Chinese, industrial capacity.

In August 1902 Prime Minister Edmund Barton, spoke in parliament in support of the White Australia policy; he quoted Pearson's disturbing forecast: Pearson also wrote Russia by a recent traveller (1859), Insurrection in Poland (1863), The Canoness: a Tale in Verse (1871), History of England in the Fourteenth Century (1876), Biographical Sketch of Henry John Stephen Smith (1894).

[3] "Pearson had a remarkable memory and a good knowledge of classic and modern European languages; he read Ibsen and Gogol in their original tongues.