Archibald Thomas Pechey
British writer and lyricist
Archibald Thomas Pechey (26 September 1876 in West Ham, Essex – 29 November 1961 in Wells, Somerset, England) often credited as Valentine, was an English lyricist and novelist. The pen name Valentine was derived from his mother's family the Vallentins, who were London distillers. Pechey's maternal grandfather Sir James Vallentin (1814–1870) was Knight Sheriff of London, and Master of the Worshipful Company of Distillers. By the 1880s Pechey's uncle Grimble Vallentine was running the business in Lambeth. His cousin John Franks Vallentin (1882–1914) was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1914.
Pechey as "Valentine" often wrote lyrics in conjunction with composer James W. Tate, including for The Beauty Spot. Songs written by Tate and Valentine (with F. Clifford Harris) include "A Bachelor Gay" and "A Paradise for Two" (both 1917, from The Maid of the Mountains). As a playwright his biggest success was Tons of Money, a farce co-written with Will Evans, which ran in the West End from April 1922 for 737 performances.
Pechey wrote stories, such as "The Adjusters" (1922) and "An Exploit of The Adjusters: The Man Who Scared The Bank" (1929), under the name Valentine. "The Adjusters" and its sequels are about a group of amateur crime fighters with complementary talents, who "adjust" the results of the law, often tricking criminals into trapping themselves using a logical analysis of the crime, so that the guilty are punished and the good are protected, released or compensated.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4786537. VIAF identifies the subject as 68577965. The Library of Congress control number is no2001023138. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1876, 1961, 1814 and 1870.
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This entry incorporates text from “Archibald Thomas Pechey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.