William ‘Quaker’ Pegg began an apprenticeship as a ceramic painter at the age of ten, when he started work at an earthenware factory in Staffordshire.
In 1790 he apprenticed as a china and porcelain painter , and then in the autumn of 1796 joined the Derby factory at the Nottingham Road Works. Pegg spent five years at Derby working as one of the company’s top porcelain painters before leaving due to religious reasons.
Pegg had become a Quaker, a religious sect that seeks religious truth in inner experience, and places great reliance on conscience as the basis of morality. Quakers strive to live simple lives and Pegg possibly decided his craft was a frivolous exercise and out of keeping with his religious ideals.
In any event Pegg must have had a change of heart because he returned to Derby in 1813 and worked for a further seven years. Pegg’s immense skill as a flower painter is well documented and according to John Twitchett he was "one of the finest natural flower painters ever to paint on china".
Pegg eventually left the Derby factory in 1820 and set up a small local shop selling general goods with his then wife Ann. He died on 27th December 1851 at the age of 76.