Author: Ripley, J. J.
Biography:
RIPLEY, Jeremy Jepson (1787-1864: ancestry.com)
A career civil servant in the Custom House, Jeremy Jepson Ripley was baptized 12 Apr 1787 at All Saints, Fulham, a child of the Rev. Thomas Ripley (1752-1813), vicar of Wootton Bassett, and his first wife, Sophia (Pemberton) Ripley (d 1788). His father had nine children by two wives. His half-brother Lieutenant-Colonel John Peter Ripley died at Delhi on the second day of the India Mutiny, 11 May 1857, commanding the 54th Bengal Native Infantry. His brother-in-law George Rowley was master of University College, Oxford. Ripley had a long and successful career in the Custom House, Thames Street. He entered the department in about 1811 as Clerk in the Secretary’s Office; by 1821 he was Assistant to the Clerk of Minutes; he gained promotion as Principal Clerk in 1826; he then advanced to Clerk of the Northern Ports in 1834. He reached the pinnacle of his career as Secretary to the Northern Ports in 1847 with an annual salary of £800. He retired in about 1852. Adhelm and Ethelfled. A Metrical Story, dedicated to the Earl of Clarendon, was first attributed to him in his full name by Williams in 1885. Two manuscripts in Ripley’s hand are preserved at the Beinecke Library: “Memoir of George Villiers, 5th Earl of Clarendon [with] Recollections of the late Thomas Ripley by his Son” (Osborn MD29), and his commonplace book (Osborn D53). He died, unmarried, on 4 Feb. 1864 at his residence in West End hamlet, Hampstead. It was a house he built in 1841 on a property he inherited from his father. His widowed half-brother, solicitor William Richard Ripley, lived with him there from the time of its construction. He was buried on 10 Feb. at St Mary, Hendon, Barnet. At the time of his death, he had four servants: coachman, housekeeper, cook, and housemaid. At probate, his estate was valued under £10,000. There is a monument to his memory in St Batholomew and All Saints, Wootton Bassett. (ancestry.com 15 Feb. 2024; contemporary London directories and gazetteers; W. Morris in Swindon Fifty Years Ago (More or Less) [1885], 137; K. Williams, England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton [2006], 390) JC