Sir Richard Pepys (2 July 1589 – 2 January 1659) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

in 1640 and was

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge ...

. He was a great-uncle of

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...

, the diarist. Pepys was born at Bunstead,

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

, the son of John Pepys of

Cottenham Cottenham is a village in Cambridgeshire, England. Cottenham is one of the larger villages surrounding the city of Cambridge, located around five miles north of the city. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 6095. Cottenham ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to t ...

and his wife Elizabeth Bendish, daughter of John Bendish of Bowes Hall, Essex. He entered

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's I ...

in 1609 and was called to the bar in 1617. He was a bencher of his inn in 1636 and acted as reader in 1640.F. Elrington Ball ''The Judges in Ireland, 1221-1921''
/ref> In April 1640, Pepys was elected

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes) ** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal el ...

in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on the 20th of February 1640 and sat from 13th of April to the 5th of May 1640. It was so called because of its short life of only three weeks. Af ...

. He was active in local government, attending meetings of the County Committee for Suffolk between 1642 and 1648. He acted as treasurer of the Middle Temple in 1648. He was appointed

Baron of the Exchequer The Barons of the Exchequer, or ''barones scaccarii'', were the judges of the English court known as the Exchequer of Pleas. The Barons consisted of a Chief Baron of the Exchequer and several puisne (''inferior'') barons. When Robert Shute was ...

on 30 May 1654 and became

Serjeant-at-Law A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English and Irish Bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law (''servientes ad legem''), or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are wri ...

at the same time. He was appointed Chief Justice of Ireland in 1654 between 22 August and 3 November. He sat in court with

Miles Corbet Miles Corbet (1595–1662) was an English politician, recorder of Yarmouth and Regicide. Life He was the son of Sir Thomas Corbet of Sprowston, Norfolk and the younger brother of Sir John Corbet, 1st Baronet, MP for Great Yarmouth from 1 ...

on occasion and was also appointed chief justice of the Upper Bench and commissioner of the great seal in 1655. He was on the circuit in Ulster in early 1657. In 1658, he presented books to the Inner Temple. He died suddenly in 1659 and was buried in

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Christ Church Cathedral, more formally The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, is the cathedral of the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough and the cathedral of the ecclesiastical province of the United Provinces of Dublin and Cashel in the ( ...

. Pepys married firstly Judith Cutte, daughter of Sir William Cutte of Arkesden, in 1620. He married secondly Mary Gosnold, daughter of

Bartholomew Gosnold Bartholomew Gosnold (1571 – 22 August 1607) was an English barrister, explorer and privateer who was instrumental in founding the Virginia Company in London and Jamestown in colonial America. He led the first recorded European expeditio ...

, who played a major part in the establishment of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

along with his wife, Mary Goldinge.John Frederick Dorman ''Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607-1624/5: Families G-P''
/ref> He had three sons and three daughters and was an ancestor of the

Earl of Cottenham Earl of Cottenham (), of Cottenham in the County of Cambridge, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1850 for the prominent lawyer and Whig politician Charles Pepys, 1st Baron Cottenham. ) He served as Lord Chan ...

. From the

Diary of Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no marit ...

, it is known that the great diarist, Richard's first cousin once removed, was on friendly terms with at least one of his sons, also called Samuel, and two of his daughters, Elizabeth Strudwick and Judith Scott, who died in 1664. Pepys grieved at the death of Judith, "a good woman", more so since like so many of the Pepys family of their generation, she was childless: "it is a sad consideration how the Pepyses do decay."

References

*''Burke's Peerage and Baronetage,'' 107th edition *Samuel Pepys, ''Diary'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Pepys, Richard 1589 births 1659 deaths English MPs 1640 (April) People from Steeple Bumpstead Serjeants-at-law (England) Members of the Middle Temple English emigrants to Ireland Lords chief justice of Ireland

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stro ...