I entirely concur in the opinion of your able correspondent, Mr. P.
Cunningham, that Pepys's _Diary_ is well deserving all the illustrative
light which may be reflected upon it from your useful pages. In
submitting the following Query, however, my object is to glean a scrap
of information on a point connected with the neglected topography of the
east end of London, taking Pepys for my text. In the _Diary_, the entry
for January 15th, 1660-61, contains this passage:--
"We took barge and went to Blackwall, and viewed the Dock and
the new west Dock which is newly made there, and a brave new
merchantman which is to launched shortly, and they say to be
called the Royal Oake. Hence we walked to _Dick Shoare_, and
thence to the Towre, and so home."--Vol. i. p. 178. new Ed.
I shall be glad to learn from any of your readers what part of the
northern bank of the river, between Blackwall and the Tower, was called
_Dick Shore_. It is not marked on any of the old maps of London I have
been able to consult; but it was probably beyond the most easterly point
generally shown within their limits. The modern maps present no trace of
the locality in question.
The dock-yard visited by Pepys was long one of the most considerable
private ship-building establishments in England. For may years it was
conducted by Mr. Perry, and subsequently, under the firm of Wigram and
Green, the property having been purchased by the late Sir Robert Wigram,
Bart. The extensive premises are still applied to the same use; but they
have been divided to form two distinct yards, conducted by separate
firms.
The origin of the name (Isle of Dogs), given to the marshy tract of land
lying within the bold curve of the Thames between Blackwall and
Limehouse, is still undetermined. The common story is, that it receives
its name from the king's hounds having been kept there during the
residence of the royal family at Greenwich. This tradition is wholly
unsupported; nor is it very probable that the king's hounds would be
kennelled in this ungenial and inconvenient place, while they could be
kept on the Kentish side of the river, in the vicinity of Greenwich
Castle, then occupying the site of the present Observatory.
The denominations "isle" and "island" appear to have been bestowed on
many places not geographically entitled to them. The Isle of Dogs,
before the construction of the canal which now crosses its isthmus, was
in fact a peninsula. Pepys {142} spent a night in the "isle of Doggs,"
as appears by his entry for July 24th, 1665, and again, on the 31st of
the same month, he was compelled to wait in the "unlucky Isle of Doggs,
in a chill place, the morning cool and wind fresh, above two if not
three hours, to his great discontent."
To the account of Katherine Pegg, given by your correspondents, pp. 90,
91, may be added, that, besides Charles Fitz-Charles, Earl of Plymouth,
she had, by Charles II., a daughter, who died in her infancy. Mrs. Pegg
was one of the _three_ wives of Sir Edward Greene, of Sampford (not
Samford), near Thaxted, Essex, created a baronet 26th July, 1660 (within
two months of the Restoration), to whom she seems to have been not
unfitly matched; for it is recorded of him that, "by his extravagancy
and love of gambling, he entirely ruined his estate, and his large
inheritance passed from his family." He had issue two daughters, who
married.--See Burke's _Extinct Baronetage_.
I do not think that Katherine Pegg, whose son by the King was born in
1657, was "the pretty woman newly come called Pegg," saluted by Pepys,
7th May, 1668, as Mr. Cunningham surmises.