Robert Lucas Pearsall (14 March 1795 – 5 August 1856) was an English composer mainly of vocal music, including an elaborate setting of "In dulci jubilo" and the richly harmonic part song Lay a garland of 1840, both still often performed today. He spent the last 31 years of his life abroad, at first in Germany, then at a castle he bought in Switzerland. Biography Pearsall was born at Clifton in Bristol on 14 March 1795 into a wealthy, originally Quaker family. His father, Richard Pearsall (died 1813), was an army officer and an amateur musician. Pearsall was privately educated. In 1816 Pearsall's mother, Elizabeth (née Lucas), bought the Pearsall family's home at Willsbridge, Gloucestershire (now part of Bristol), from her brother-in-law, Thomas Pearsall. Thomas had been ruined by the failure of the iron mill that had been the family's business since 1712. After the death of his mother in 1837, Pearsall sold Willsbridge House again, but although he would never live there again, he regularly chose to be known in publications as 'Pearsall of Willsbridge'. As for Willsbridge Mill, it was later converted into a flour mill and it stands to this day. Pearsall married Harriet Eliza Hobday in 1817. She was the daughter of a moderately successful portrait painter, William Armfield Hobday (1771–1831). The couple had four children — two boys (although the first son died in infancy) and two girls — all of them born in Bristol. In their early years of marriage, Pearsall practised as a barrister in Bristol, but in 1825 he took his family to live abroad: first to Mainz, then to Karlsruhe (1830–1842). In 1842, evidently after a long period of strain in their relationship, husband and wife separated. Pearsall used the money from the sale of the house at Willsbridge to buy Wartensee Castle, a ruined medieval keep near Rorschach in Switzerland. After purchasing the castle, he spent several years restoring the keep and building a suite of apartments adjacent to it. He remained there until his death on 5 August 1856, and was buried in the vault of the castle chapel. When the chapel was deconsecrated in 1957, his remains were removed and reinterred in the nearby Roman Catholic church at Wilen-Wartegg. Composer Pearsall's move abroad brought opportunities to develop his interests as a composer. Although it seems likely that he had some instruction, or at least received advice in composition