A 150-YEAR-old wedding dress has reunited a family and restored a piece of history to the goldfields. Descendents of Mary Pearce, who came to the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s, met for the first time yesterday at a private viewing of their great-great-grandmother’s wedding gown at the Bendigo Art Gallery. Sue Napier, 57, from Bendigo, distant cousin Tony Pearce, 62, and his daughter Rebecca, 33, from Ballarat, were found after a long search by gallery staff installing the pale green taffeta dress for the Australian Aesthetic, which will run alongside the White Wedding Dress exhibition next month. Mr Pearce is descended from Mary Pearce’s son and Mrs Napier from her daughter. Mrs Napier said she had heard about the remarkably preserved dress through family lore, but had never laid eyes on it. “All of a sudden she’s come to life,” she said. “I think it’s been passed down the maternal line.” The stiff dress with the tiny 22-inch waist was worn by Mary Pearce at her London wedding in 1850 and was one of two outfits the young woman brought with her from England. Mrs Napier’s late aunt Betty Blunden held onto several items from Mary’s wardrobe and donated them to the National Gallery of Victoria in 1979. “My aunt did value the history of the dress so much. She donated another dress and some jewels,” she said. Mrs Blunden’s son Andy did much of the detective work, tracing Mary’s children through the course of the century. “How this dress has connected people is really quite unbelievable,” said Ina Pearce, who has researched much of her husband Tony’s family tree. Bendigo Art Gallery curator Tansy Curtin said the coloured wedding dress was an example of how Victorian-era fashion was adapted to the harsh Australian environment. “Mary was not a wealthy woman but she had to be practical,” she said. “A white dress would have gotten dirty but this could be worn again.” For Rebecca Pearce, seeing the small, pristine dress on display brought a shiver of recognition. “You have a sense of where you came from.” she said. Mary Pearce’s wedding dress can be seen at the the Australian Aesthetic, opening alongside the White Wedding Dress exhibition on August 1.