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Captain Arthur Pepys lived briefly at Stoneborough House, Budleigh Salterton (1891 census) and then moved to Knowle House where he and his family were at the time of the censuses in 1901 and 1911; he lived there until his death at the age of 73 in 1920. 

Arthur Pepys was born in 1846 in Marylebone, London, the fifth of ten children of Edmund Pepys (1805-1878) and his wife Louisa, nee Lady Louisa Jane Davis (1806-1891).  He was still living in Marylebone at the time of the 1861 census. He joined the King’s Royal Rifles (60th Rifles) as an ensign in April 1865 and was promoted to Lieutenant in April 1868 (1).  In 1871 he was in camp at Colchester.  In January 1877 he was made Captain on the retirement of a fellow officer (2).

The King's Royal Rifle Corps was a British Army infantry formation, originally raised in colonial North America as the Royal Americans, and recruited from American colonists.  From 1830 they were called the King's Royal Rifle Corps, later known as the 60th Rifles.  The regiment served for more than 200 years throughout the British Empire.  In 1858 the Rifle Depot at Winchester was made their headquarters.  During the rest of the 1800s the unit was active in China, Canada (Wolseley Expedition), Afghanistan, India, Burma and South Africa. 

Arthur was too young to have been involved in the 2nd China War but he was with his regiment in Canada in 1868 as there is a photograph of him in full uniform on the internet under the name of Mr A Pepys(4).  His uniform is correct for the regiment therefore I am sure it is him in the picture (5).  He is also shown in another photograph on the McCord site in Tudor costume!  The regiment was also involved in the second Afghan war (1878-80) and the third Burma war (1885-87) but Arthur probably missed these events because he retired with gratuity in 1879 (1), and he was on the reserve list with a gratuity (3) in 1888 and living in London.

He married Margaret Lomax in January 1889 in Prestwich near Manchester (6), and by 1891 they were living in Budleigh Salterton.  They had three sons; John born in 1890, Francis in 1891, Christopher 1892 and a daughter Joan born in 1895. 

While in Budleigh Captain Pepys was appointed to be one of the local Land Tax Commissioners, and his name was listed in the London Gazette on December 28th, 1906.  He was also involved on the management committee of the Budleigh Salterton Cottage Hospital from 1892-1919 with a year’s leave of absence in 1899 when he was away from home (7).

His wife, Margaret, died in March 1950 at the age of 87, and is buried with her husband in East Budleigh Churchyard. 

John Pepys (1890-1914)

John was born in Budleigh Salterton on the 7th May 1890 and was at home with his parents for the 1891 and 1901 censuses.  He attended Charterhouse School and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.  He joined the army as a Second Lieutenant in the Second Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in November 1910 and was sent to France with the Expeditionary Force on the 14th August 1914.  He died in action nine days later at Mons, Belgium, three hours after going into action as a machine gun officer (8).  He was buried in Hautrage, Saint Ghislain, Hainaut, Belgium.  He was unmarried. 

Francis Pepys (1891-1914)

Born on the 2nd April 1891 at Budleigh Salterton he, like his brother, was at home in Budleigh during the 1901 census.  He attended Charterhouse School where he was in the Cricket XI, leaving the school in 1909.  He joined the Special Reserve and was attached to the 3rd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment in 1911 and was in barracks at Pewsey with his regiment at the time of the census (Captain Meredith Goodwyn was also there (9)).  He was gazetted to the Oxfordshire  and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in May 1913 and went with them to France on 13th August 1914.  

He was involved in the retreat from Mons and the battles of the Marne and Aisne.  He was awarded the D.S.O. when on the November 3rd he advanced from his trench and assisted in driving away a party of the enemy digging a trench within thirty yards of his own.  Thirty of the enemy were killed.  He helped repulse an attack by the Prussian Guards at Ypres on 11 November but was killed in action the following day by a shell burst as he stepped out of his trench. Posthumously he was mentioned in a despatch from Sir John French on 15th January 1915 (8).

He was apparently very fond of hunting, steeple-chasing, cricket, rackets, golf, shooting, fishing and skiing (8).  He did not marry. 

Christopher Pepys (1892-1980)

He was born 11th August 1892 in Budleigh Salterton and was living with his parents and three siblings at Knowle House in 1901.  The children were being educated at home in 1901 as the census includes a governess and a French schoolroom maid.  He later attended Charterhouse School.  He entered the Devonshire Regiment and won the M.C. and the D.S.O. in the First World War. The citation when he won his D.S.O. read:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the left bank of the Piave on 27th October, 1918.  In command of the battalion, which was in brigade support, he led his troops across the Piave under very heavy fire, and hearing there was a gap between the front line battalion and troops on the right, he at once pushed forward to fill the gap, and pushed his advance until held up in front of C. Palaclin, a formidable strong point.  Hearing that the troops on his left were held up and the commanding officer killed, he went to them under heavy fire, reorganised them, and supervised consolidation until reinforcements arrived.  During the further advance next day into villages occupied by the enemy he showed great initiative and courage in directing attacks on strong positions (11).  

At this time he was a temporary Major attached to the 8th Battalion Devonshire Regiment.

He returned to the army in WW2 and in 1946 was a Colonel with the Pioneer Corps and later received an O.B.E. for his work with them (12).

Christopher Pepys had married Helen Forbes Black in 1924; she died in January 1937 at the age of forty and is buried in East Budleigh Churchyard.  They had two children; Patricia Pepys was born on 14 April 1926 in Headington, and a son John D F Pepys was born in Budleigh in 1930.  Patricia continued to live at Knowle House in Budleigh Salterton after her father’s death and she died on 22nd  May 2001. 

Compiled and Researched by Roger Lendon © 2010

(1)Harts Army List 1879

(2)London Gazette 17th January, 1877.

(3)Harts Army List 1888 

(4)www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/

(5)www.victorianstrollers.co.uk/stevesuniforms/riflecorps.html

(6)FreeBMD.com

(7)Hospital Minutes

(8)De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour 1914-1918

(9)See OVApedia entry 

(10)Bond of Sacrifice Vol.1, Col. A. Clutterbuck et al. Naval & Military Press

(11)Supplement to the London Gazette, 10 December 1919

(12)www.royalpioneercorps.co.uk/rpc/history_awards.htm

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