Family and Education

3rd s. of Capt. George Pepper of Ballygarth, co. Meath by his w. Hannah. m. Johannah, 1da.

Offices Held

M.P. [I] 1715-22 Oct. 1725.

Capt. Earl of Roscommon’s Ft. 1689, Erle’s Ft. 1690, 8 Drags. 1693; maj. 1695; adjt.-gen. in Ireland 1706, lt.-col. bef. 1707; col. 8 Drags. 1707-19; brig.-gen. 1707; maj.-gen. 1710; res. 1719; ranger of Epping forest and Enfield Chase 1714-25.

Biography

After serving in Spain and Portugal during the war of the Spanish succession, Pepper in 1714 bought the office of ranger of Enfield Chase, over-bidding the future Duke of Chandos.1 In the 1715 rebellion he was sent with his regiment to hold down Oxford, where he made several arrests.2 Returned as a Whig for Steyning, he voted with the Government on the septennial bill and the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, but was absent on the peerage bill. While the South Sea scheme was before Parliament he accepted a bribe of £4,000 stock at 180 from the Company on the usual terms (see Chaplin, Sir Robert); but when he came to receive his ‘profit’ on the stock, complained that it had been sold too soon, the price having since continued to rise.3 Accusing of pocketing the proceeds of selling timber from Epping forest, he sold his office to William Pulteney, dying ‘unlamented’ a few days later, 22 Oct. 1725, at Dover on his way to France ‘to take the air at Montpellier for the recovery of his broken constitution’.4

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: J. B. Lawson

Notes

• 1. C. H. C. M. Baker, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, 386-7.
• 2. Hearne, Colls. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), v. 125; Pol. State, x. 336-8.
• 3. CJ, xix. 569.
• 4. HMC Var. viii. 395; Baker, 394-7; Pol. State, xxx. 418.