Samuel Pegge

Infobox Person
name = Samuel Pegge

---

image_size = 200px
caption = frontispiece to Forme of Cury
birth_date = 5 November 1704 [ [http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=2054&inst_id=14 University of London archives] accessed September 2007]
birth_place = Chesterfield, Derbyshire
death_date = 14 February 1796
death_place =
education = Chesterfield
occupation = Vicar and Antiquarian
spouse = Anne Clarke
parents = Christopher and Gertrude Pegge
children = three

Samuel Pegge the elder (1704-1796) was an antiquary, born on 5 November 1704 at Chesterfield, Derbyshire. He was the son of Christopher Pegge [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=pZkdAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=yeldersley+pegge&source=web&ots=EHsG2dA-82&sig=RFvX8o1thdYQmkWuiADVWCVtxbU Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century] By John Nichols 1812] and his wife Gertrude, daughter of Francis Stephenson of Unstone, near Chesterfield. Christopher Pegge (d. 1723) belonged to a family that had lived for several generations at Osmaston, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was a woollen dealer in Derby and later a lead merchant in Chesterfield. Samuel's father was mayor of Chesterfield three times.Samuel Pegge the Elder in Dictionary of National Biography accessed online September 2007] Samuel published an important study on the Roman roads of Derbyshire as well as notes which his son, also Samuel, continued on the subject of Derbyshire words and phrases. [http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/bomarch/bomjune06.html The Samuel Pegge lexicographical manuscripts - June 2006] Kings College Manuscripts by Katie Sambrook. Accessed 26 September 2007]

Education

Samuel Pegge was educated at Chesterfield and he became a pensioner and scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1722. He graduated B.A. 1725, M.A. 1729. He was elected to a lay fellowship on the Beresford foundation of his college on 21 March 1726, but was removed in favour of Michael Burton (afterwards vice-master of St. John's), who claimed founder's kin. Pegge was then made an honorary fellow, and in 1729 was elected a ' Platt ' fellow of St. John's. In 1730 he was elected a member of the Spalding Society, to which he contributed some papers, and from 1730 to 1732 belonged to the Zodiac Club, a college literary society consisting of twelve members denominated by the signs of the zodiac. Pegge was the original Mars.

Vicar and Antiquarian

Pegge was ordained in 1729, and in 1730 became curate to Dr. John Lynch at Sundridge in Kent. On 6 December 1731 he was inducted into the vicarage of Godmersham, Kent, where he lived for about twenty years, writing on antiquities and collecting books and coins. From 1749 to 1751 he lived at Surrenden, Kent, as tutor to the son of Sir Edward Dering. In 1751 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and in the same year was inducted into the rectory of Old Whittington, near Chesterfield, exchanging Godmersham for the rectory of Brinhill (or Brindle), Lancashire. On 22 Oct. 1758 he exchanged Brinhill for the vicarage of Heath, near Whittington, holding Heath together with Whittington until his death. In 1765 he was presented to the perpetual curacy of Wingerworth, near Whittington. He was a prebendary of Lichfield (1757-1796), and in 1772 was collated to a stall in
Lincoln Cathedral. In 1791 he was created LL.D. by the University of Oxford. He died, after a fortnight's illness, on Saint Valentine's Day in 1796 at the age of 92. He was buried in the chancel at Whittington, where a mural tablet was installed. His small collection of English coins and medals were sold by auction on 23 March 1797.

Family

[
Catherine Pegge, a mistress of Charles II of England. [ [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50706 Magna Brittanica] , Daniel and Samuel Lysons, Volume 5, 1817] ] Pegge married, on 13 April 1732, Anne (d. July 1746), daughter of Benjamin Clarke of Stanley, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, and they had three children : Christopher (died in infancy), Samuel (the younger), and Anna Katharine, wife of the Rev. John Bourne of Spital, near Chesterfield. A portrait of Pegge, drawn by Gustavus Brander, and engraved by James Basire, is prefixed to Pegge's Forme of Cury (see illustration above) however there was an oil-painting of him (reputed a better likeness) by Elias Needham.

Contributions

Pegge contributed to the first ten volumes of the Archaeologia memoirs on a great variety of topics, such as Anglo-Saxon jewellery ; the introduction of the vine into Britain; the stylus: King Alfred; the 'bull-running ' at Tutbury ; the horn as a charter or instrument of conveyance ; shoeing horses among the ancients ; cock-fighting ; the right of sanctuary ; the manner of King John's death ; Kits Cojry house ; the commencement of day among the Saxons and Britons ; ' the mistaken opinion that Ireland and the Isle of Thanet are void of Serpents and prehistoric remains generally.' He wrote seven memoirs in the ' Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica,' including ' The Story of Guy, Earl of Warwick' (1783); 'The History of Eccleshall Manor' (1784); 'The Roman Roads of Derbyshire ' (1784) ; 'The Textus Roffensis ' (1784) ; ' History of Bolsover and Peak Castles, Derbyshire' (1783). He also wrote a large number of articles for the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' from 1746 to 1795, signing himself ' Paul Gemsege ? ( = Samuel Pegge), ' T. Row ' ( = the rector of Wkittington), and 'L. E.' ( = [Samue] ! [Pegg] e) . While vicar of Godmersham Pegge made collections relating to Kent, including a ' Monasticon Cantianum ' in two folio manuscript volumes, and an account of the antiquities of Wye. He compiled a manuscript 'Lexicon Xenophonticum,' and possessed various lexicons annotated by himself, as well as two volumes of collections in English history.

Published works

# 'A Series of Dissertations on some elegant and valuable Anglo-Saxon Remains ' (chiefly coins), London, 1756, 4to.
# ' Memoirs of the Life of Roger de Weseham - Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,' London, 1761, 4to.
# 'An Essay on the Coins of Cunobelin,' London, 1766, 4to. Evans ( Coins of the Ancient Britons, p. 7 t cf. p. 342) remarks that Pegge's division of the coins is judicious, but that many of his descriptions of the types are ' supremely ridiculous.'
# ' An Assemblage of Coins fabricated by authority of the Archbishops of Canterbury,' London, 1772, 4to.
# FitzStephen's ' Description of London ' (translated from the Latin), 1772.
# Evelyn's 'Fumifugium,' edited by S. P., 1772, 4to.
# ' Forme of Cury : a Roll of ancient English Cookery,' London, 1780, 8vo ; published from a manuscript belonging to Gustavus Brander.
# ' Annales Elise de Trickingham,' &c., ed. by S. P., 1789
# ' The Life of Robert Grosseteste Bishop of Lincoln,' London, 1793, 4to (Pegge's principal work).
# 'An Historical Account of Beauchief Abbey ' (Derbyshire), ed. by J. Nichols, London, 1801, the printing of which was largely supervised by Pegge's son Samuel.
# ' Anonymiana, or Ten Centuries of Observations,' 1809, 8vo; also 1818,8vo.
# 'An Alphabet of Kenticisms/ printed in ' Cleveland Words/ &c. (English Dialect Society), 1876, 8vo. (Nos. 10-12 were posthumous.)
# 'A Disquisition on the Lows or Barrows in the Peak of Derbyshire, Particularly that capital of British Monuments called Arbelows' Archaeologia 7: 131-148 1785
# 'Illustrations of some Druidical remains from the Peak of Derbyshire drawn by Hayman Rooke' Archaeologia 7: 19-24 1785
# 'Observations by the Rev. M Pegge on the Stanton Moor Urns and Drudical Temple' Archaeologia 8: 58-61 1787
# ' Observations on an antient font at Burnham Deepdale, in Norfolk' Society of Antiquaries Nov 18 1790

See also [Memoir in Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, vi. 'pp. 224 ff., principally based on memoirs by Samuel Pegge the younger ; Chalmers's Biogrophy Diet. ; Brit. Mus. Cat.] W. W.

References

External Sources

*