| Samuel Pegge (the younger) | |
| Birth Date: | 1733[1] |
| Death Date: | 22 May 1800 (aged 66 or 67) |
| Occupation: | Aniquarian |
| Spouse: | Martha Bourne and Goodeth Belt |
| Parents: | Samuel Pegge the elder |
| Children: | Sir Christopher Pegge and Charlotte Anne |
Samuel Pegge - the younger (1733 - 22 May 1800) was an antiquary, poet, musical composer and lexicographer. He was the son of Samuel Pegge and their work is frequently intertwined.[2] He was the only surviving son of Samuel and his wife Anne, daughter of Benjamin Clarke, esq., of Stanley, near Wakefield, Yorkshire.[1]
After receiving a classical education at St. John's College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, and by the favour of the Duke of Devonshire, lord chamberlain, he was appointed one of the Grooms of the Privy Chamber and an Esquire of the king's household. On 2 June 1796 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.[3] After his death, he was buried on the west side of Kensington churchyard, where a monument was erected to his memory.[1]
Pegge acquired a considerable proficiency in music at an early age. He composed a complete melodrama both the words and the music in score. Many catches and glees, and several of the most popular songs for Vauxhall Gardens were written and set to music by him. He was also the author of some prologues and epilogues which were popular including a prologue spoken by Mr. Yates at Birmingham in 1760. He also wrote an epilogue spoken by the same actor at Drury Lane on his return from France; and another epilogue, filled with pertinent allusions to the game of quadrille, spoken by Mrs. Yates at her benefit in 1769, 1770 and 1774. He was likewise the author of a pathetic elegy on his own recovery from a dangerous illness, and of some pleasant tales and epigrammatic poems.[1]
By his first wife, Martha, daughter of Dr. Henry Bourne, an eminent physician of Chesterfield, he had one son, Sir Christopher Pegge, M.D. (1764 - 22 May 1822), and a daughter, Charlotte Anne, who died unmarried on 17 March 1793. He married, secondly, Goodeth Belt, aunt to Robert Belt, esq., of Bossall, Yorkshire.[1]
His son, Christopher, was a well known doctor in Oxford and also delivered lectures in mineralogy at Oxford University, and in 1800, the university purchased a cabinet of minerals from him which was to be part of the establishment of that subject at the university.[4]
Christopher Pegge, together with Wall and Bourne was one of the three most important doctors in Oxford in the early nineteenth century.[5] quotes the following rhyme about them, entitled The Oxford medical trio: