Robert Henry Pepper was born in and lived with parents Robert and Margaret, younger brother Percy Cecil and two sisters in The Cottage, the gamekeeper’s cottage at the Pilsgate end of Burghley Park where all the children were born.

Father Robert was a gamekeeper on the estate like his father before him. An assistant gamekeeper lodged with them and in 1916 the Pepper family were still living and working on the Burghley estate. In 1911 Robert was at school and there is no record of his war service.

He married Ivy Griffin in Stamford in the autumn of 1924 and his death is recorded as registered in Stamford in June 1967.