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Thomas Pepper, farmer and coal merchant, Quorn
This is a photograph taken in about 1910, is of a cart belonging to Thomas Pepper, a Quorn farmer and coal merchant. The young man with the cart is Cecil Pepper, Thomas’s youngest son by his second marriage.
Thomas Pepper (Cecil’s father) was born in 1845 in Long Whatton. By 1871 Thomas is living in Mountsorrel (North End) and has been married for three years to his first wife Mary Ann. By 1881 they have three children, William, Frederick and Mary Ann Lucy, born in 1869, 1871 and 1876 respectively. His occupation is entered as a licensed victualler (pub landlord) and coal merchant. Sadly, shortly after the 1881 census, when their youngest child was only 5 years old, Mary Ann died and Thomas was left a widower.
Within a relatively short time, Thomas remarried. He continued to live in Mountsorrel with his new wife Fanny and his three children by Mary Ann. They settled down and had two more children in 1883 and 1886 - Thomas and Fanny Gertrude. In the late 1880s the whole family moved to Quorn and in 1991 were living and working at Tanyard Farm near where the Village Hall is now. The Village Hall had been built in 1889 on the site of a ‘tan yard’, where they made leather. In 1893, their third child, Cecil Algernon Pepper was born.
By 1901 the family are living at Home Farm on Leicester Road, where the Mills flats are today. This was the Home Farm for Quorn House (the Over Hall), the seat of the Farnham family on Meeting Street.
The Peppers lived and farmed at Leicester Road for many years. They provided all the dairy produce for Quorn House and Fanny made the butter. They also continued to sell coal as they had done at Mountsorrel. It is evident from booklets written in the 1990s by Harry Limbert (Old Quorn Tales), that the Peppers were held in great affection by villagers and Fanny and Thomas (the elder) were often referred to as Granddad and Grandma Pepper.
Fanny and Thomas died in 1923 and 1924, but the farm was left in the capable hands of their two sons Thomas and Cecil. Thomas eventually moved back to Mountsorrel and settled at One Lea Farm. In 1932 Cecil Pepper, his wife Eva and their three children, Norman, Bryan and Addie moved from Leicester Road to Home Farm on Soar Road.
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Submitted on: |
2013-11-09 |
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Submitted by: |
Sue Templeman |
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Artefact ID: |
1810 |
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Artefact URL: |
www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=1810 |
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Print: |
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