John Pelly Lepard

John Pelly Lepard (d. 1796) worked with his father, William Lepard (c. 1735-1805), as a London stationer, rag merchant and paper maker. The elder Lepard operated shops in Tooley Street, Upper Thames Street, Southwark, and at 26 Newgate Street from 1784 to 1788, at which time the younger Lepard joined the firm. John Pelly Lepard moved to 91 Newgate Street in 1789, and his father joined him there in 1792. After the younger Lepard’s death in 1796, his father moved the firm to 103 Shoe Lane. James Smith, a deacon at Little Wild Street and a messenger for many years to the Particular Baptist Fund, along with his son, John James Smith, were both watchmakers in Bunhill Row. He is probably the same James Smith who joined with William Lepard in 1792 in operating a printing and bookselling business at 14 Bridges Street, Covent Garden, remaining with Lepard until 1798. William Lepard, Sr., John Pelly’s grandfather, joined Carter Lane, under John Gill, in 1717 and died in January 1799, aged 99; William, Jr., joined in 1755 and died in February 1805, aged 70. Among the junior Lepard’s earliest printing jobs (1758-1766) were various works by Gill. All three Lepards were prominent members of Carter Lane, Southwark. See Universal British Directory (1791), 1/2:211; Horsleydown and Carter Lane Church Book, 1719-1808 (MS., Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle, London) ff. 22, 27, 33-35; Ian Maxted, The London Book Trades 1775-1800: A Preliminary Checklist of Members (Kent: William Dawson, 1977), 137, 208; and Christopher Woollacott, A Brief History of the Baptist Church in Little Wild Street, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, from 1691 to 1858 (London: Houlston and Wright, 1859), 41.