Hilary Douglas Clark Pepler

Harry Douglas Clark Pepler (1878–1951), known as Hilary Pepler, was an English printer, writer and poet. He was an associate of both Eric Gill and G. K. Chesterton, working on publications in which they had an interest. He was also a founder with Gill and Desmond Chute in 1920 of a Catholic community of craftsmen at Ditchling, Sussex, that took the name The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic.

Life

His background was Quaker.[1] He was born at Eastbourne and educated at Bootham School.[2][3][4] He met Gill in Hammersmith, London, during World War I, through the Hampshire House Workshops. At that time Pepler was a social worker for the London County Council, and organised the first London school meals service.[5] Pepler and Gill were together mostly responsible for the Ditchling house magazine, The Game.

He founded in 1915 or 1916 the St. Dominic's Press. It published, amongst other books, important editions for the Ulysses Bookshop in High Holborn, London, owned by Jacob Schwartz, to 1937. These included works of James Joyce (in fact pirate editions),[6] but also George Bernard Shaw, John Drinkwater, Augustus John, Chesterton and John Collier.

He became a Roman Catholic convert in 1916; and joined the Dominicans as a lay member in 1918. At that time he changed his name to Hilary. Financial quarrels between Pepler and Gill may have led to Gill leaving the Ditchling group in 1924.[7] Pepler was forced to leave the Guild in 1934.[8]

After Chesterton's death in 1936, Pepler assisted Reginald Jebb, son-in-law of Hilaire Belloc, in running The Weekly Review, the successor distributist publication to G. K.'s Weekly. Stephen Dorril's Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism (2006) mentions Pepler in passing, as a member of the British People's Party in 1945.

Family

He married Clare Whiteman in 1904; they had three sons and three daughters.[9]

His son David Pepler married Betty Gill, daughter of Eric Gill.

Pepler's son, Fr. Conrad Pepler, O.P., ran the Dominican conference centre at Spode House, Staffordshire, for many years, and founded Spode Music Week.

Works

References

  1. ↑ Keith Alldritt, David Jones: Writer and Artist (2003), p. 48.
  2. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  3. ↑ Bootham Old Scholars Association (2011). Bootham School Register. York, England: BOSA.
  4. ↑ Hilary Pepler - CatholicAuthors.com
  5. ↑ Fiona MacCarthy, Eric Gill (1989), p. 65.
  6. ↑ Pirates and Patrons
  7. ↑ Aldritt, p. 56. Dated also to 1925
  8. ↑ The Eric Gill Society: Guild Members
  9. ↑ Aleman, Richard (2008-07-24). "The ChesterBelloc Mandate: H.D.C. Pepler Part One". Distributist.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2013-04-22.
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