It is highly appropriate that this Royal Square establishment should have been named in honour of the hero of the Battle of Jersey, because Major Francis Peirson, who led Jersey's troops to defeat the French on 6 January 1781, was killed in front of this building, then owned by a Dr Lerrier.
The early history of the property as an inn is uncertain, but Cornishman Thomas Parris took over as manager from the licensee, a Mr Brett, in 1881, when the centenary of the battle was celebrated. The property seems to have been owned by a Mr E J Gallichan at this time and was sold to Mr Parris's widow, formerly Elizabeth Randell Dave, also from Cornwall, in 1899.
Mrs Parris was succeeded by her son Robert's son, also Robert, in 1921. A member of the Parris family still held the licence at the end of the 1970s.