Joseph Chaning (Chaning) Pearce (1811–47)

Surgeon and palaeontologist. Studied the fossils of Worcestershire and Wiltshire. Made one of the largest and best private collections of fossils in early nineteenth-century England. Studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital, London; practised as a surgeon in Bradford upon Avon, Wiltshire; retired in 1845 due to ill health. Moved to Bath, where he established a museum for his fossil collection in a wing of his house.