The Pepys Family

The mother of Samuel Pepys was Margaret Kite, who, before her marriage, had been a washmaid, was the sister of a Whitechapel butcher. Her sister married Thomas Fenner, a blacksmith and had two daughters who married two brothers William and Anthony Joyce.

Pepys made several mentions of visits to the area. He made a chilly trip along the river to Blackwall in January 1661 to see 'a brave new merchantman, the 'Royal Oak'. Also that year Pepys records that he visited a Captain Marshe in Limehouse, whose family, he said, had lived there for two hundred and fifty years. The name Marche appears frequently amongst the names of those serving on the vestry and this may be the same family.

One month before the Great Fire Pepys recorded his attendance at a 'noble supper' at Lady Pooley's house at Bow.

The Great Fire of 1666 did not touch Stepney and many Londoners took refuge with what they could save, in the outer hamlets. Pepys recorded "September 3rd. About four o'clock in the morning, my Lady Batten sent me a cart to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things, to Sir W Rider's at Bednall Green, which I did riding myself in my night-gowne in a cart; and Lord to see how the streets and highways are crowded with people running and riding and getting of carts at any rate to fetch away things. I find Sir W Rider tired with being called up all night, and receiving things from several friends."

Sir William Rider was the Deputy Master of Trinity House and he often entertained Samuel Pepys at his home, Bethnall House in Bethnal Green and his diary records specifically his visit there on 26 June 1663.

The house had been built in Queen Elizabeth's time for John Kirby, a wealthy citizen of London and was nicknamed Kirby's Folly. It later became a lunatic asylum and remained so until about 1900.

After the Fire people in great numbers moved from the City to live permanently in the outlying districts and included amongst them were a number of City bawdy houses which moved to Stepney. The increase that this move by London citizens occasioned in trade produced an unbroken line of houses and workplaces along the riverside and by 1667 the green at Bethnal Green had shrunk to 7 acres due to encroachment.