William 'Quaker' Pegg (1775–1851) was born at Whitmore, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, the son of a gardener. His family moved to Shelton in the Potteries two years later. Aged just ten he was put to work in an earthenware factory, becoming an apprentice painter aged fourteen.
Born the son of a gardener in 1775, Pegg, like many of his contemporaries, started work at an early age. He worked from the age of 10 in an ‘earthen ware manufactory’, before at fourteen becoming an apprentice painter; studying it as an ‘Art’ for the first time. In the autumn of 1796, having completed his apprenticeship he moved to Derby to begin his employment at the Nottingham Road factory. Pegg spent five years at Derby working as one of the company’s top porcelain painters before leaving due to religious reasons. Having moved towards the Quaker faith, he found his new beliefs in conflict with his passion, the frivolous art of painting, and he radically changed his life, quitting the factory and for the next twelve years earning a meagre living as a stockingmaker.
In 1813, however, he returned to Derby to resume his career as a china painter. This was to be the start of his finest period, when he produced the flower painting many consider to be the greatest of all time. His work displayed a freedom of expression that was to increase over the coming years and which is often described as flamboyant.
By 1820 Pegg had another change of heart and left the factory for good, taking up as a shopkeeper with his wife at 38 Nottingham Road, Derby, close to the factory site, where he worked for the remainder of his life.
Pegg's work is highly collectable with examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Crown Derby Museum.
