Robert Jephson (1736-1803)
M.P., Playwright at London; Master of the Horse at Dublin
He was born in Ireland to a family best associated with Mallow Castle, Co. Cork, the heir to which was his rakish cousin, William Henry Jephson. He entered but did not graduate from Trinity College, Dublin, and was commissioned (1758) into the 73rd Regiment of Foot, serving in the Caribbean. In 1762, he retired on half-pay on account of his health and moved to London where he took an apartment in Hampton Court and mixed in the circle of Dr. Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Burney, Edmund Burke, Charles Townshend, etc.
Although still based in London, he was elected to the Irish Parliament in 1773 and two years later started writing plays for the London stage that included the tragedy Braganza, successfully performed at Drury Lane in 1775; The Conspiracy (1796); Julia (1797); The Law of Lombardy (1779); The Count of Narbonne performed at Covent Garden in 1781 and adapted from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto; and, The Campaign, performed at the Smock Alley Theatre in 1784. In 1794, he published a poem Roman Portraits, and The Confessions of Jacques Baptiste Couteau, a satire on the excesses of the French Revolution.
He returned to Dublin in 1783 on his appointment as Master of the Horse and published a series of articles in the Mercury in defence of the Lord-Lieutenant's administration. These were collated and published as a book entitled, The Bachelor, or Speculations of Jeoffry Wagstaffe. He married his first wife in London circa 1783. She was Sally, the Boston-born daughter of Thomas Flucker/Fluker, the last Royal Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts. She died without children. Back in Dublin, he married Jane, daughter of his friend, Sir Edward Barry 1st Bt., President of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland.
Although still based in London, he was elected to the Irish Parliament in 1773 and two years later started writing plays for the London stage that included the tragedy Braganza, successfully performed at Drury Lane in 1775; The Conspiracy (1796); Julia (1797); The Law of Lombardy (1779); The Count of Narbonne performed at Covent Garden in 1781 and adapted from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto; and, The Campaign, performed at the Smock Alley Theatre in 1784. In 1794, he published a poem Roman Portraits, and The Confessions of Jacques Baptiste Couteau, a satire on the excesses of the French Revolution.
He returned to Dublin in 1783 on his appointment as Master of the Horse and published a series of articles in the Mercury in defence of the Lord-Lieutenant's administration. These were collated and published as a book entitled, The Bachelor, or Speculations of Jeoffry Wagstaffe. He married his first wife in London circa 1783. She was Sally, the Boston-born daughter of Thomas Flucker/Fluker, the last Royal Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts. She died without children. Back in Dublin, he married Jane, daughter of his friend, Sir Edward Barry 1st Bt., President of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland.
