Pictures

This photograph shows Charles Pearce of Pilton House, Pilton, Barnstaple with his two daughters and their stepmother, Annie Barrow Pearce and his son Arthur and wife Emmeline (sitting in front). Charles Pearce was a Justice of the Peace (JP) and one time mayor of Barnstaple and owned the family business, The Tannery, in South Molton until 1953. His first wife, Elizabeth Annie Pearce (born 1861) had recently died at the age of 56. Annie Barrow Pearce died in February 1936.

His grand-daughter, Phyllis Rick-Adams, daughter of Arthur and Emmeline, was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1922 where her father managed tea and rubber plantations before returning to South Molton to manage The Tannery in 1936. Phyllis ran her own dance school in South Molton for more than 35 years and died in May 2012, aged 89, at Pilton House Residential Care Home, the very house once owned by her grandfather Charles Pearce Senior which was bought by the Barnstaple Old People's Housing Association from the Pearce Family in 1948. Not in the photograph, perhaps away at war, is Charles Pearce Junior (born 1886, died 1960) and his son, John Pearce (born 1887, died 1963).

Thanks to Jayne Searle, Manager of Pilton House, for this photograph from their archives and Cherry Pearce, Charles Pearce Junior's daughter, for additional information.