[1][2][3] He was educated via the sign language of his era, he became Chaplain to the Deaf and Dumb,[4][5] and he fulfilled this duty in the Southampton area for the rest of his life.

His paternal grandfather was Chatham-born officer of the Royal Navy Robert Pearce,[nb 1][6][7][8] and Sarah née Seward, both of Southampton.

[nb 11][29] Pearce met his wife Frances Mary Monck at St Saviour's, Oxford Street, in 1887,[30] and they married on 26 April 1888.

[15] It is not known whether Pearce's childlessness had any connection with recommendations of castration of the congenitally deaf by early 19th century eugenicists who held those views which were later developed by Francis Galton.

Similarly, the 1861 and 1871 Census, in which the enumerator was informed by the Brighton Institution, state that the inmate Pearce was "deaf and dumb from birth.

Pearce left the Institution in 1872 to work in his father's office as a secretary, but in his free time he sought out other deaf people, assisted and educated them, and organised groups for Sunday worship.

By 1881 he was still living with his parents and siblings, describing himself as "lay reader to deaf and dumb,"[16] He was ordained deacon on Sunday 21 May 1885 by the Bishop of Winchester, after being mentored via sign language by Reverend Charles Mansfield Owen who was at that time vicar of St George's Church, Edgbaston and was later to become Dean of Ripon.

[2][26][36][37] The Portsmouth Evening News said this:[38] "It is gratifying to recall the fact that the Winchester diocese is the first, and, probably the only one, to devote special attention to the deaf and dumb.

F. Pearce [sic], himself afflicted in this way, has laboured among them with rare devotion and success, and now, thanks to the munificence of Sir A. Fairbairn, Bart., of Brambridge House, a church for the deaf and dumb has been opened at Northam, the dedication sermon of the Bishop being interpreted to the congregation by the finger and sign language by Canon Owen.

[27] After meeting Pearce, the Queen requested a Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb and Others of the United Kingdom, which completed its report in 1889.

On 20 November 1887, he took a communion service and preached a sermon for deaf and hearing people at Holy Trinity, Colden Common, near Winchester, Hampshire.

The experiment of communicating to those ... deprived of hearing ... a knowledge of the great Truths ... by means of those "signs" which constitute a language in themselves, has been eminently successful.

After the usual prayers had been gone through, the teacher commented at considerable length, by means of gestures, on the 11th Chapter of the 1st of Samuel, his audience seeming to comprehend every idea which he sought to convey ... At the same time, we may state, that at Dalton, near Huddersfield, resides Mr. Henry Roxby, a young man, a native of Hull, wholly deaf ...