Samuel Peploe (bap. 29 July 1667 – 21 February 1752) was Bishop of Chester from 1726 to 1752.

Life

Peploe was baptized at Dawley Parva, Shropshire and educated at Penkridge School, Staffordshire. He then matriculated at Jesus College, Oxford on 12 May 1687, where he obtained his BA degree in 1691 and his MA in 1693. After being ordained, he became rector of Kedleston, Derbyshire in 1695 and vicar of Preston, Lancashire in 1700. He gained a reputation as an outspoken enemy of the local Roman Catholic inhabitants, who were in the majority. In November 1715, when Jacobite forces came to Preston, Peploe is said to have preached a brave sermon urging support for King George I, who had become king the previous year. His sermons on the dangers of popery also brought him wider attention, and in 1717 he was nominated as the warden of Manchester collegiate church; however, Francis Gastrell, the Bishop of Chester, refused to sanction the appointment on the basis that Peploe's Lambeth degree of Bachelor of Divinity was not a valid qualification. It took many years of litigation before it was ruled that Lambeth degrees, which are awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, were of equal status with university degrees.

Gastrell died in 1725 and Peploe, supported by Edmund Gibson (Bishop of London) and the Duke of Newcastle, was appointed. He was consecrated on 12 April 1726 and allowed to continue to hold his Manchester wardenship (which he held until he made way for his son in 1738), although he had to resign his position in Preston. He died on 21 February 1752 and was buried in Chester Cathedral.

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