Harry Peckham

Infobox Person
name = Harry Peckham


image_size = 240px
caption = by Joseph Wright of Derby
birth_name =
birth_date = 1740
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death_date = 10 January 1787
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resting_place = Temple Church
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nationality =English
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education = Winchester and New College, Oxford
employer =
occupation = Lawyer, writer
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party = Whig
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children =
parents = Rev. Henry and Sarah Peckham of Chichester, Suffolk [http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=%22harry+peckham%22&lr=&sa=N&start=40 The Middle Temple Bench Book: Being a Register of Benchers of the Middle ... - Page 269] by Middle Temple (London, England), Arthur Robert Ingpen - Lawyers - 1912, accessed 13 June 2008]
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Harry Peckham ( 1740 [T.F. Kirby, Winchester Scholars: a list of the Wardens, Fellows and Scholars of Saint Mary College of Winchester...commonly called Winchester College, (1888)] – 10 January 1787) was a King's counsel [ [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oIRJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22harry+peckham%22+letters&source=web&ots=O_9j3tc0ow&sig=PYJhAZbIXwGKa5DAKNAu4VX5La0&hl=en#PPA83,M1 The Public and Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon] ] and sportsman who toured Europe and wrote a series of letters which are still being published over 200 years later. Peckham was a member of the committee that drew up early laws of cricket including the first inclusion of the Leg before wicket rule. The diarist James Woodforde makes reference to Peckham playing cricket at Oxford in 1760 and he was still playing in 1771.

Biography

Peckham was the only son of Reverend Henry Peckham, a clergyman of Chichester in Sussex. He was a contemporary of James Woodforde at school ( Winchester College) and at New College, Oxford where he was also a friend of Francis Noel Clarke Mundy [http://www.ipgbook.com/showbook.cfm?bookid=1845886194&userid=1EC469FA-803F-2B7A-70861EE0955E888A The Tour of Holland, Dutch Brabant, the Austrian Netherlands, and Part of France; in which is included a Description of Paris and its Environs] , Harry Peckham & Martin Brayne (Editor), First Ed. 1772. and October 2008 ISBN 9781845886196] .

The diarist James Woodforde makes reference to Peckham playing cricket at Oxford in 1760 and 1761.R.L. Winstanley, "The Diary of James Woodforde, Vol. 1 (1759-1762)", (1979).]

Peckham was a member of the private "Markeaton Hunt". In 1762–3, his friend Mundy commissioned a set of six portraits. Each of the subjects was in the distinctive dress of the Markeaton Hunt, consisting of a blue coat over a scarlet waistcoat and yellow breeches. Peckham sat for one of these paintings. The paintings hung at Mundy's ancestral home, Markeaton Hall. [ [http://www.sothebys.com/liveauctions/sneak/archive/la_markeaton_0705.html Markeaton Portrait] , David Moore-Gwyn, Sothebys.com, accessed 7 June 2008]

Peckham entered Middle Temple in 1764 and was called on 29 January 1768. In the same year he toured through Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Paris, Rouen, and Calais. His letters home were published by George Kearsley [ [http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:2DWTTfYdgBAJ:www.chawton.org/library/research/helme_louisa_pub.pdf+%22harry+Peckham%22+tour&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=32&gl=uk&client=firefox-a Publishing history] accessed 9 June 2008] amongst a number of travel books Kearsley published in London. Peckham's writings were and are still considered witty and interesting. His book records a view of Europe before the political upheavals and is considered to give a Whiggish view of how the Netherlands was a successful outcome of the union of liberty, commerce and Protestantism. [ [http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/acqarch/acqarch03.html King's College acquisitions] , 2003, accessed 8 June 2008]

Peckham continued to play cricket as it seems likely that he was the 'Mr Peckam (sic), jun' who played for the Gentlemen of Sussex against the Gentlemen of Hampshire at Broadhalfpenny Down on 20 August 1771. [T.J.McCann, "Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century" (2004)]

In 1774, Peckham sat on the committee that formulated some early laws of cricket. They were settled and revised at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall on Friday 25 February 1774. The meeting was chaired by Sir William Draper and the committee included the Duke of Dorset, the Earl of Tankerville and other "Noblemen and Gentlemen of Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex, and London". [ [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AEACAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA70&dq=%22harry+peckham%22+cricket+laws&ei=cLVLSL_qNoe4jgHbrpHlDQ&client=firefox-a Cricketana] by James Mycroft, 1865] This meeting agreed one of the earlier sets of cricket rules and is acknowledged as being the first where the Leg before wicket rule was introduced.'Pall Mall, South Side, Past Buildings: Nos 94–95 Pall Mall: The Star and Garter', Survey of London: volumes 29 and 30: St James Westminster, Part 1 (1960), pp. 351–2. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40589 URL] . Date accessed: 08 June 2008.]

In 1781 Peckham was junior counsel to the former attorney-general John Dunning in the unsuccessful defence of François Henri de la Motte accused of supplying naval secrets to the French. [ [http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1780s/t17810711-.html The case] can was accessed July 2008] Dunning was taken ill during the trial and Peckham found himself having to conduct the defence in a case which is said to have been the inspiration for the trial of Charles Darnay in Charles Dickens's novel "A Tale of Two Cities". [Arthur Machen, "Dreads and Drolls" (1926).""]

Peckham was still writing in 1783; he wrote to the 3rd Duke of Portland on 22 May 1783 from the Inner Temple. [ [http://longford.nottingham.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo='Pl/C/12/13') Nottingham University records] accessed 9 June 2008] He was called to the bench on 20 June 1783.

Peckham died only two years after his father on 10 January 1787 at the age of forty-six and was buried in the Temple Church on 19 January 1787. [ [http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=%22harry+peckham%22&lr=&sa=N&start=50 Sussex Notes and Queries] - Page 138, Sussex Archaeological Society, 1926] . According to Ben Nicolson, author of a major work on Joseph Wright of Derby, Peckham suffered a broken neck whilst hunting. [Nicolson, B., Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, Vol. 1, (1968).] His name was added to a white marble monument erected on the north wall of Chichester Cathedral, noting that he was Recorder for Chichester. This monument had been created for Peckham's parents by his sister Sarah Farhill.'Chichester cathedral: The eastern arm', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 3 (1935), pp. 116-126. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41668 url] . Date accessed: 14 June 2008.]

Major works

* [http://www.ipgbook.com/showbook.cfm?bookid=1845886194&userid=1EC469FA-803F-2B7A-70861EE0955E888A Harry Peckham's Tour] , Harry Peckham & Martin Brayne (Editor), ISBN 9781845886196

References