Return to Name Origin and the Provenance of Abraham"The TEMPLE family belonged originally to Leicestershire, where, at Temple Hall, the elder line had resided since the 14th century. Peter TEMPLE (1600-1663), the regicide, was a member of this elder line; a younger branch had settled in Oxfordshire and passed thence to Buckinghamshire, where John TEMPLE purchased Stowe in 1589. This John was brother of Anthony, who was grandfather of Sir William TEMPLE, the famous statesman. John TEMPLE's son Thomas, who was created a baronet in 1611, was the great-grandfather of Earl TEMPLE (Richard GRENVILLE-TEMPLE, 1st Earl TEMPLE) 1711-1779."
"Sir William TEMPLE, Bart. (1628-1699), English statesman, diplomatist, and author, was born in London, and came of an old English family, but of the younger branch of it, which had for some time settled in Ireland. He was the eldest son of Sir John TEMPLE (1600-1677), Irish master of the rolls, whose father was Sir William TEMPLE (1555-1627), provost of Trinity College, Dublin. His mother was Mary HAMMOND..."
"See Life and Works of Sir William TEMPLE (2 Vols, 1720; 2nd ed., with Life by Lady Giffard, 1731); a more complete edition, including the Letters, was published in 4 vols. in 1814; Burnet, History of his own Time; T.P. Courtenay, Memoirs of the Life &c., of Sir William Temple (2 vols., 1836); Macaulay, Essay on Sir William TEMPLE; A.F. Sieking, Sir W. TEMPLE and other Carolean Garden Essays (1908); and E.S. Lyttel, Sir William TEMPLE (Stanhope Prize Essay, Oxford, 1908)."
TEMPLE - Local, "of the temple," any sacred enclosure. Anglo-Saxon tempel; Middle English temple, from residence thereby.
Matilda du Temple, co. Oxf. 1275
Petrus del Tempil, 1379: P.T. Yorks, p. 294
Matilda de Tempell, 1379: ibid.
1576 - Leonard Temple, co. Oxon: Reg. Univ. Oxf., vo;. ii, pt. ii, p. 69.
1634 - William Chapman and Joane Temple: Marriage Lic (London), ii. 220.
Return to Table of Contents