[2] In his early career, he was promoted to Lieutenant on 14 September 1863 and only 3 weeks later, On 20 October, Captain Henry Boys reported on Pearson's "active conduct in a fire breaking out out in the Pelorus.

[2] In 1898 he became Commander in Chief, Australia Station and served as such for two years until late 1900, when he returned to the United Kingdom and bought Rocklands House in Goodrich, Herefordshire.

[8] A member of a notable Staffordshire family with a long tradition of service in India and the British Armed Forces, Pearson was the grandson of John Pearson (1771-1841), who was a barrister and senior East India Company official who served as Advocate-General of Bengal from 1824 to 1840.

[9] His father General Thomas Hooke Pearson CB (1806-1892) served as an ADC to the Earl Amherst, then Governor-General of India.

[11] Their eldest son, Lieutenant Reginald William Pearson, was killed in 1900 in the Siege of Ladysmith during the Boer War[12] and his parents erected a memorial window in Goodrich Church in his honour which can still be seen today.