Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pegge, Christopher
PEGGE, Sir CHRISTOPHER, M.D. (1765–1822), son of Samuel Pegge the younger [q. v.], by his first wife, was born in London in 1765. He entered Christ Church, Oxford, as a commoner on 18 April 1782, and graduated B.A. on 23 Feb. 1786. He was elected a fellow of Oriel College in 1788, and thence graduated M.A. and M.B. on 10 June and 18 July 1789. He returned to Christ Church, was appointed Lee's reader in anatomy there in 1790, and thence proceeded M.D. on 27 April 1792. On 9 Nov. 1790 he became physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary, and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1795. He was knighted on 26 June 1799, and in 1801 was appointed regius professor of physic at Oxford. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians on 25 June 1796, delivered the Harveian oration in 1805, and became a censor in 1817, having left Oxford the year before, and taken a house in George Street, Hanover Square, in hopes of obtaining relief from a severe asthma by change of abode. Soon after the same cause led him to move to Hastings. He had resigned his readership in 1816, but retained the regius professorship, an office the duties of which were small. He attended in the university, in accordance with the statutes, and died in Oxford, after an asthmatic seizure, on 3 Aug. 1822. He was master of the charitable foundation known as Ewelme Hospital, and was buried in Ewelme church, where his epitaph in the south aisle has become almost illegible. His portrait was painted by T. Nevins, and was engraved. He is represented in his full academical dress.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 449; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886.]