Emily Pepys
Encyclopedia
Family
Emily was born on 9 August 1833, at WestmillWestmill
Westmill is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England, with an area of 1036 hectares. A population of 264 was recorded in the 2001 National Census...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, where her father was rector at that time. Her father, Henry Pepys
Henry Pepys
Henry Pepys was a Church of England Bishop of Worcester.-Biography:Pepys was born in Wimpole Street, London, the son of Sir William Weller Pepys , a master in chancery, who was descended from John Pepys, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, the great-grandfather of Samuel Pepys the diarist...
(this branch of the family pronounced the name "peppis", not "peeps", 1783–1860), was created Anglican bishop of Sodor and Man
Diocese of Sodor and Man
Sodor and Man is a diocese of the Church of England. Originally much larger, today it covers just the Isle of Man and its adjacent islets.-Early history:...
in 1840 and translated only a year later to Worcester
Anglican Diocese of Worcester
The Diocese of Worcester forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England.The diocese was founded in around 679 by St Theodore of Canterbury at Worcester to minister to the kingdom of the Hwicce, one of the many Anglo Saxon petty-kingdoms of that time...
. He played a minor political role as a Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. Her mother, Maria Pepys (1786–1885), was the daughter of John Sullivan, a privy councillor
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
and a commissioner of the Board of Control
Board of Control
In municipal government a Board of Control is an executive body that usually deals with financial and administrative matters. The idea is that a small body of four or five people is better able to make certain decisions than a large, unwieldy city council...
. She was the youngest of their four surviving children.
Emily Pepys married Rev. Hon. William Henry Lyttelton (1820–1884), rector of Hagley
Hagley
Hagley is a village and civil parish on the northern boundary of Worcestershire, England, near to the towns of Kidderminster and Stourbridge. The parish had a population of 4,283 in 2001, but the whole village had a population of perhaps 5,600, including the part in Clent parish...
, Worcestershire, and son of William Lyttelton, 3rd Baron Lyttelton
William Lyttelton, 3rd Baron Lyttelton
William Henry Lyttelton, 3rd Baron Lyttelton , was the son of William Henry Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton by his second marriage to Caroline Bristow. He married Lady Sarah Spencer daughter of George John, 2nd Earl Spencer, by whom he had several children including his heir....
, on 28 September 1854. His niece, Lucy Lyttelton
Lucy Cavendish
Lucy Caroline Cavendish, Lady Frederick Cavendish was a pioneer of women's education....
, then aged 13 and surprised at the news, described Emily in her diary as "charitable, young (21), amiable, humble, good-looking...". Emily died without issue on 12 September 1877, probably at the rectory. Under her husband's will, a Lady Emily Lyttelton Fund was set up in 1884 in her memory for local nursing purposes. She was a collateral descendant of the diarist Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
and the niece of Charles Christopher Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham.
Journal
The Journal of Emily Pepys itself, takes up 60 printed pages - a further two pages are missing - and covers six months of 1844–5 spent in the family home of Hartlebury CastleHartlebury Castle
Hartlebury Castle, a Grade I listed building, in Worcestershire, central England, was built in the mid-13th century as a fortified manor house on land given to the Bishop of Worcester by King Burgred of Mercia. It lies near Stourport town in north Worcestershire. The manor of Hartlebury...
, the residence of the bishop of Worcester. It was written when Emily was ten, and found its way into the Nutt family for reasons that remain unclear, and was discovered there on a shelf by a 14-year-old girl. As Gillian Avery
Gillian Avery
Gillian Avery is a British children’s novelist and literary historian.She was born in Reigate on 30 September 1926 and attended Dunottar School there. She worked first as a journalist on the Surrey Mirror, then for Chambers Encyclopedia and Oxford University Press. In 1952 she married the...
points out in her introduction, it is all the more interesting and informative because it was not an assignment given by an adult, but a private diary containing "all the matters that are usually forgotten by the time the mature adult adult comes to write memoirs." The journal also featured in a 1991 American anthology of female English diary writings.
Emily is vocal and intelligent beyond her years; her journal is coherent and frank, giving a glimpse of busy life in a wealthy clerical family. Like many at that time, Emily was much concerned with moral values and matters of obedience and self-improvement. She is impressed by the didactic novel Influence...: "I think it did me a lot of good, the 'Ellen' there was so like me... Since I read that I have felt much happier" (15 July). She goes on to admit how she "began speaking crossly" when told she had to go to bed earlier. Other reading matter around that time included Martin Chuzzlewit
Martin Chuzzlewit
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialized between 1843-1844. Dickens himself proclaimed Martin Chuzzlewit to be his best work, but it was one of his least popular novels...
, which was appearing in parts (18 July), and a ghost story called "White Lady
White Lady (ghost)
A White Lady is a type of female ghost reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with some local legend of tragedy. White Lady legends are found around the world. Common to many of them is the theme of losing or being betrayed by a husband or fiancé...
", while out in the park with her sister Louisa (20 July). Later she chose The Pickwick Papers
The Pickwick Papers
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is the first novel by Charles Dickens. After the publication, the widow of the illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any...
from a box of books that arrived from Cawthorn's circulating library
Public library
A public library is a library that is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources and operated by civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries...
, "as I know I may read that, and the others I may not read until Mama comes home."
Emily observes the courting behaviour of her elders and fancies herself in love with a cousin, Teddy Tyler, who does not answer her letters. Two of Teddy's sisters come to stay again, but not the three boys: "In the evening Tiny (alias Maria) said, 'The boys send their love Emy, and hope you will write soon.', though it is their turn over and over. I should like very much to have a little private letter from Teddy to show me his heart, and also I should like to see him again to revive my love" (7 August). Her cousins Harriet and Katey are more to her liking except that "they spoilt my Harmonicon, and when I mended it, they would not leave off, so I was obliged to hide it" (30 July). The next day, as they leave: "I remember saying to Harriet, what fun it would be if Katey and [Emily's older brother] Herbert were to get in love though I do not think there is much chance on Herbert's side" (31 July).
Archery
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
is a popular pursuit, but dancing is a mixed blessing: Robert (an older brother) "always makes me dance with those horrid Mr. Leas, who certainly do smell most dreadfully of snuff
Snuff
Snuff is a product made from ground or pulverised tobacco leaves. It is an example of smokeless tobacco. It originated in the Americas and was in common use in Europe by the 17th century...
and tobacco. I danced a quadrille
Quadrille
Quadrille is a historic dance performed by four couples in a square formation, a precursor to traditional square dancing. It is also a style of music...
with young Percival, a very stupid long legged dull man. (I have just remembered that it was another dance I danced with Percival...) The second dance was a Polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
, which I did not dance as Mama does not like us to dance it with gentlemen except brothers and cousins, though I do not see more harm in it than in a Galop
Galop
In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse , a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popular in Vienna, Berlin and London...
" (21 August). She goes to some trouble to avoid being taken into supper by a leering, teasing Mr Talbot.
Emily has regular lessons: "At present I do French exercises for ¾ hour, Maps 1 hour, Music 1¼, read French and English, ¾ hour, write French copy ½ hour. I like doing Maps very much; they are traced out, and one only has to put the names in and paint it. I have made this description in case I get married and have children it may be useful to them" (26 August), but alas, she was to die childless. She is amazed at how few books her mother had as a child. She accompanies her mother to the village school and on charitable visits to the poor. "I should very much like to buy something more for the poor people, but as I have not got a halfpenny at present it is impossible" (26 August). When she yields to her less sociable brother Herbert and they do not go to a county cricket match where she could meet her cousins, she is disappointed at getting no credit from her mother: "I am sorry to say I do a great many more things for the praise of Mama than for the love of God" (28 August).
The longest entry in the journal describes a fire in the small hours of Christmas Day, which has the family huddling in the hall in nightdresses and capes. "Fortunately the fire kept in the Schoolroom and so the Engines soon put it out. Papa went into the room... and nearly fell into the cellar or under the Schoolroom, as there had been a hole made in the floor, which he did not see, but somebody got him out as he was hanging by his hands... I never was in a house on fire before, and hope I never shall be again."
There is no explanation as to why the diary breaks off on 26 January. The Preface mentions that blank pages in the notebook had been left, and used later by a certain Arthur Nutt to write punishment lines ("Arthur Nutt is a good boy. A good boy is happy."), and by Dee Cooper's grandmother's great aunt, Polly Nutt, for shopping lists and diary entries of her own.