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Record #5554

Name :: : Lionel J. PEARCE (1920 - 1981)
Father: :
Mother: :

BMD and other details

Date of Birth: : 1920 (approx.)
Marriage (1): :
Marriage (2): :
Date of Death: : 1981

Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland, Lancashire

Abode (2) : Place of Death / BurialAustralia

Sailing Information

Date of Arrival: : Nov 1932
Country: : Australia
Ship: : Balranald
Placement Family: :

Homes / Agencys

Institution (GB): :
Agency: : Fairbridge Homes

NotesIn 1932, Lionel J. Pearce, 12, arrived at Fremantle, Australia, in a group of 27 children from the Child Emigration Society, The Strand, London, England, and en route to Fairbridge Farm School, Pinjarra, Australia.

Lionel told the story of his early life in England and at Fairbridge in his memoir, Feathers of the Snow Angel: Memroies of a Child in Exile. It was reviewed by Bron Sibree:

"Lionel Pearce begins his poignant memoir with a series of evocative images, childhood memories that flower fleetingly on the page as universal images of warmth and familiarity, carefully distilled into potent tools of inquiry.

'I see them,' he writes of a china washbasin and a water jug, 'through the bars of the cot, the essentials of civilisation, passed from generation to generation.'

Peering through these bars, Pearce opens a brief vista of life in early 1920s Lancashire as he sets the tone for a heart-rending journey into the legacy of childhood grief and cruelty. For these seemingly innocent cot bars are a metaphor for what years later is to become Pearce's personal prison -- a powerful invisible jail of inadequacy, loneliness, class-consciousness and shame.

Writing this memoir for Pearce, a retired teacher of zoology and botany and father of five, part of a life-long process of trying to deal with the effects of a painful and traumatic childhood. In the epilogue, written not long before he died at the age of 81, he reveals that 'through all the years I could never forget the sorrows of my early life.'

Yet even the honesty of this sentence cannot prepare you for the emotionaly intensity of Feathers of the Snow Angel. Pearce was five when his mother died, and the book takes its title from his fragmented memory of his mother's death. Her cold body lying in a feather bed with rumpled white sheets left on the child an impression of snow and feathers that was to haunt him for the rest of his life.

The illegitimate son of a Lancashire coalminer, Pearce spent his early years in the care of his mother, living in a household of stern, God-fearing aunts. His father, a shy awkward visitor, unwelcome in the home of his mother's family, is a caring but shadowy figure in Pearce's treasure trove of memories -- a child's universe flavoured with the taste of stale bread puddings and fearsome tales of chimney sweeps and tinkers.

Fragmentary images of his mother sewing, rolling pastry or toiling over a copper, kaleidoscope into memories of her ostracism and shame.

It is is the child Pearce who tells this story. His burgeoning class-consciousness is coloured by hunger and loneliness after his mother's death when he is taken to live with an aunt.

He becomes a desperate and hungry five-year-old roaming the streets searching for his mother, begging for pennies or food. Darkest of all these images are those of the priestly, black-robed visitors, who frequent the house and who eventually come to spirit the unwitting boy away to a convent in London to be put up for adoption.

It is the child's perspective, too, that lends such authority to Feathers of the Snow Angel and such palpable grief to its narration. Pearce is again wrenched away from a foster family he comes to love and placed into the care of a well-to-do family whose attitudes to child-rearing reinforce his self-consciousness, shame and isolation.

He is not yet eight when he receives the first of many beatings by his stepfather, for stealing chocolate.

By the time he is packed off to Fairbridge Farm in Western Australia at the age of 12, his life with his adoptive family is little more than a succession of beatings and small humiliations.

Yet, Feathers of the Snow Angel is also coloured by a curiosity and intelligence that triumphs over shame and isolation to seek elevation in books and in the beauty of nature. He recalls his years as an indentured farm labourer at Fairbridge with characteristic honesty. By this time, no amount of kindliness could penetrate the armour of self-consciousness and shame.

Pearce was to enjoy happiness with his own children, but never wrote of his later life. For him, writing was a process of trying to deal with teh scars of those earlier years. Even as an adult he was, as he reveals in the epilogue, 'Still grieving for my mother. I never believed she was dead.'"

ContributorsCreated : 2009-03-14 15:31:47 / From original database

Last Updated :

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Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 33 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
21043	PEARCE, A N	1922	ENG,	Oct 1935 : Otranto	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
6707	PEARCE, Alfred	1913	ENG, LDN, London	Mar 1927 : Montrose	CAN	Barnardos
16012	PEARCE, Alfred	1875	ENG, LAN, West Derby	Jun 1883 : Sardinian	CAN	Board of Guardians (Various)
21581	PEARCE, Alfred, George	1912	ENG, LDN, London	Mar 1927 : Montrose	CAN	Barnardos
4440	PEARCE, Caroline	1858	ENG, WIL, Lacock	1871 : - Unknown -	CAN	Maria Rye
14947	PEARCE, David	1874	ENG,	Jun 1884 : Polynesian	CAN	Catholic Protection Society
19462	PEARCE, Eleanor	1870	ENG,	Aug 1885 : Sardinian	CAN	MacPherson Homes
2936	PEARCE, Eliza	1884		Mar 1895 : Mongolian	CAN	Maria Rye
23034	PEARCE, Ernest R.	1899	ENG,	Apr 1912 : Empress of Ireland	CAN	Fegan Homes for Boys
22152	PEARCE, F. D.	1888	ENG,	Apr 1897 : Labrador	CAN	Barnardos
16011	PEARCE, Florence	1878	ENG, LAN, West Derby	Jun 1883 : Sardinian	CAN	Board of Guardians (Various)
23481	PEARCE, Frank W.	1891	ENG, WIL, Bradford on Avon	Aug 1905 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
23480	PEARCE, Frederick Albert	1897	ENG, GLS, Bristol	Jul 1901 : Numidian	CAN	Barnardos
26435	PEARCE, George	1904		Jul 1913 : Belgic	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
19297	PEARCE, Harold Robert	1904	ENG,	Sep 1912 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
6041	PEARCE, Harry	1894	ENG,	Oct 1904 : Bavarian	CAN	Barnardos
22151	PEARCE, Henry	1883	ENG,	Apr 1897 : Labrador	CAN	Barnardos
24610	PEARCE, Herbert	1895		Jun 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
22150	PEARCE, John	1886	ENG,	Apr 1897 : Labrador	CAN	Barnardos
26434	PEARCE, John G	1903		Jul 1913 : Belgic	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
11812	PEARCE, Lilian	1900	ENG, , St Mary	Jul 1914 : Corinthian	CAN	Barnardos
5554	PEARCE, Lionel J.	1920	ENG, LAN	Nov 1932 : Balranald	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
8048	PEARCE, Mary A.	1846	ENG,	Jun 1869 : Austrian	CAN	Maria Rye
16010	PEARCE, Maud	1876	ENG, LAN, West Derby	Jun 1883 : Sardinian	CAN	Board of Guardians (Various)
19887	PEARCE, Reginald	1896	ENG,	May 1907 : Empress of Britain	CAN	Fegan Homes for Boys
20602	PEARCE, Rose	1890	ENG, YKS, Hull	Jul 1900 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
15152	PEARCE, Rosella	1890	ENG,	Oct 1900 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
19961	PEARCE, Stanley	1887	ENG,	Apr 1897 : Labrador	CAN	Fegan Homes for Boys
20091	PEARCE, Thomas	1871	ENG,	Jun 1886 : Lake Superior	CAN	Barnardos
7401	PEARCE, Thomas S	1863	ENG,	Jun 1878 : Sarmatian	CAN	Middlemore
11811	PEARCE, Ursula M	1902	ENG,	Jul 1914 : Corinthian	CAN	Barnardos
9657	PEARCE, William	1902	ENG,	Jun 1911 : Carthaginian	CAN	Middlemore
10601	PEARCE, William	1912	ENG, LDN, London	Mar 1930 : Duchess of Richmond	CAN	Barnardos
ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links

Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 33 Entries

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