Edward Lovett Pearce was born about 1699 in County Meath and was the only child of General Edward Pearce, a first cousin of the architect Sir John Vanbrugh, and Frances, daughter of Christopher Lovett, Lord Mayor of Dublin 1676–77 and previously a merchant in Turkey. In that same year Vanbrugh was beginning work on his first great architectural commission of Castle Howard which was the first truly baroque house in England, ironically Vanbrugh's new cousin was to be one of the leading architects whose designs were to overthrow the baroque fashion less than 28 years later.