William Pearse was born in Great Brunswick Street in Dublin on 11 November 1881. He was the younger brother of Patrick Pearse, the writer, educationalist, and revolutionary. He joined the family sculpting business and ran it following the death of his father James Pearse in 1900. William attended classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art between 1897 and 1910 and he seemed destined to embark upon a career as an artist. He later became a full-time art teacher at Scoil Éanna, the Gaelic school founded by his brother in 1908. Although William was more of an artist than a revolutionary, he shared his brother’s interest in the Irish language and Gaelic culture. Like his elder brother, William was also a founding member of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. During the Easter Rising he served as a captain on the headquarters staff and stood alongside his brother as he read the Proclamation of Independence. William Pearse was one of the last, if not the last person, to leave the General Post Office after the evacuation order was given. Following the surrender, he was court-martialled and, contrary to expectations, executed in Kilmainham Jail (4 May 1916). William Pearse was the only one of the executed leaders to plead guilty, though he exercised no real authority during the rebellion and his leadership role was said to be minimal.
A collection of mainly legal and financial papers relating to St. Enda’s School (Scoil Éanna), an Irish language college established by Patrick Pearse in Cullenswood House on Oakley Road in Ranelagh, Dublin, in 1908. The school moved to the Hermitage, a former country house in Rathfarnham, in 1910. Pearse founded St. Ita’s School for girls along the same general lines as St. Enda’s in Cullenswood House in 1910, when he moved St. Enda's boys' school to Rathfarnham. Some of the records refer to the precarious financial state of St. Enda’s and to Pearse’s efforts to raise funds to keep the school solvent. The section also contains some miscellaneous notes by Pearse on education-related subjects. Some of the documents listed below are in either Pearse’s hand or are endorsed with his signature.
Life insurance policy letter from the Patriotic Assurance Company for Patrick Pearse, 5 George’s Ville (now Sandymount Avenue), Dublin. 5 Feb. 1901. The insurance policy is for £300 at the rate of £1 6s 1d payable half yearly … ‘the sum assured being payable at death or at 60 years of age with profits’. With a receipt for payment on said policy dated 31 January 1902.
Three copy photographic images showing James and Margaret Pearse with their children Margaret Mary (born 1878), Patrick (born 1879), William (born 1881) and Mary Brigid (born 1884). Manuscript annotation on the reverse of two of the prints reads ‘Photo’s Geoghegan’s, Dublin’.
A printed appeal ‘to the Irish Race’ for funds to keep St. Enda’s School at the Hermitage, Rathfarnham in Dublin. Published by Comhartha-Chuimhne Phadraic agus Liam Mhic Phiarais. The first page has a photograph of Patrick Pearse.
A cover annotated ‘Pearse book’. Includes a clipping of a short article from the ‘Evening Mail’ (1 Feb. 1955) re a work called the ‘Bugle Calls’ supposedly written and composed by Gerald Crofts for Patrick Pearse before 1916.
Personal cheque from William Pearse’s personal bank account with the Terenure branch of the Royal Bank of Ireland Limited, for the payment of £2 to Percy C. Webb. The cheque is signed by Pearse.
