A quantity of original documentation appertaining to Assistant Surgeon George Pearse, Royal Navy, comprising an Indenture witnessing his apprenticeship to James Grindley, a Surgeon and Apothecary of Westminster, London, dated ‘in the forty-fourth year’ of George III’s reign; his letter of appointment as Assistant Surgeon to H.M.S. Scipion, dated 8 May 1812 and a certificate of service granting him ‘conduct money’, also signed aboard H.M.S. Scipion, 20 May 1812; a letter of appointment to H.M.S. San Josef as Assistant Surgeon, dated 5 July 1814; and certificate granting him the Freedom of the City of London, dated 7 September 1824; together with family related Indentures (dated in 1789 and 1803), in respect of John James Grindley, and a lengthy letter from Charlotte Wilhelmina Grindley, dated 13 April 1827, in which she begs for an increase in pension, her first and second husbands having died on active duty in India and Burma, namely Lieutenant Joseph Ferris of the 24th Foot and Captain John James Grindley of the 54th Foot, a certain degree of overall wear and browning, otherwise generally in good condition (Lot) £80-120

George Pearse was born in Exeter in 1789 and qualified in medicine at St. George’s Hospital prior to embarking on a career as a naval surgeon, ‘serving on board the San Josef, Scipion, Gargon, & c. in the Mediterranean during the Peninsular War’ (The London Medical Directory of 1847, refers). He then commenced a successful career of general practice in Westminster, holding numerous medical appointments up until his death in January 1846.