Joseph Timperon

London merchant, partner in Timperon & Dobinson (q.v.) and earlier a slave-trader in partnership with his cousin William Peatt Litt (q.v.) among others.

1. Joseph Timperon was baptised in 1762 in Bromfield, Cumberland, son of Matthias Timperon and Sarah nee Peatt. His mother's brother was Arthur Peatt (1741-1802, q.v.), Timperon's first business partner, and as such a key figure in the Timperon/Westmoreland/Dobinson/Litt family trading nexus. Through his mother's sister Martha, Joseph Timperon was also the first cousin of Isaac Westmorland (1755-1824), the father of Isaac Westmorland (1787-1856) (q.v.). His sister Isabella married Joseph Dobinson in Aspatria, Cumberland, in 1788; one of their children was Joseph Dobinson (1790-1866). The earliest known business reference for Joseph Timperon is for Peatt and Timperon, merchants and commerce, at 26 Philpot Lane, London in 1788. Peatt, Arthur & Timperon are at the same address in 1790.

2. Joseph Timperon the awardee was married 08/11/1806 in St Marylebone to Anne Kyte; their children were baptised in two clusters, St Marylebone 1807-1812 and St Albans 1813-1817. Anne was the sister of Charles Kyte (d. 1834, q.v.); Charles Kyte’s daughters, Isabella and Sarah Kyte, and their sister, Mary (Kyte) Malet, received legacies of £1000 plus annuities of £150 per annum in the will of Joseph Timperon's daughter Isabella Worley.

3. Joseph Timperon appears as one of the owners in 14 slaving voyages between 1798 and 1808, twelve of them in the Ann or the Columbus and 10 of them from Liverpool and 4 from London. William Peatt Litt was his partner in all the voyages: in 6 the two men were joined by Jonathan Harrison, George Harrison and John Hart, and in 3 by Jonathan (given once as Joseph) Harrison.

4. Joseph Timperon the younger son of Joseph of St Pancras matriculated Trinity Oxford 13/12/1824 aged 17. A Joseph Timperon married Hannah North (who signed with her mark) in St Bartholomew's 30/06/1828. This was possibly the oldest son of Joseph Timperon making an unsuitable marriage. Timperon was living at Upper Harley Street in London when he was named as a trustee and executor in the will of Samuel Virgin in 1809.

5. Timperon's oldest daughter Sarah Loretta [shown as Louisa in the Gentleman's Magazine] married the Rev Martin John Lloyd, with Banns read at St Edmund the King and Martyr 03/07/1836, and the marriage at St Peter St Albans, when Joseph Timperon was identified as of New Barnes House Hertfordshire. Another daughter, Mary Anne Timperon, died at New Barnes 21/09/1859, left £12,000. The Susanne Louise Timperon of Portland Villas the Vineyards Richmond Surrey who died 09/05/1865 and whose will was proved 18/11/1865 (Francis Dobinson was one of the executors) leaving effects of £8000 resworn Nov. 1866 at under £10,000 was the widow of Joseph Timperon's son John Robert Timperon of Brockenhurst (who died c. 1848).

6.  The will of Joseph Timperon formerly of Upper Harley Street and now of New Barnes Hertfordshire and also of Philpot Lane merchant was proved 04/08/1846. In the will he rehearsed his marriage settlement of 1806 (of which the trustees were John Powell Roberts, now John Powell Powell, William Peatt Litt and Joseph Huddart jun., later Sir Joseph Huddart), under which he settled the future proceeds of his leasehold house in Upper Harley Street (which in the event had been £2,852) and a sum of £10,000 on his wife Anne; he also left her an additional annuity of £300 p.a. In the will he said that the couple had had seven children, of whom four (John Robert Timperon; Arthur Matthias Timperon; Mary Anne Timperon and Isabella Charlotte Worley) were living at the time he made the will in 1843. He left an annuity of £500 p.a. to his daughter Mary Anne in trust (trustees included his nephew Joseph Dobinson), and given her state of health commended her to the care of his other surviving children. He also left an annuity of £200 p.a. to his daughter Isabella Charlotte Worley and her husband Henry Thomas Worley; and small monetary legacies to his relatives Matthias Peatt and Esther Peatt in Cumberland. He had been paying £100 p.a. to William Clark formerly in the employ of himself and Joseph Dobinson, which he provided to have continued at Joseph Dobinson's discretion. He left real estate in Cumberland and at Brockenhurst in trust for his son John Robert Timperon, and in Hertfordshire in trust for his younger son Arthur Matthias Timperon. He specified his Jamaican property as the New Ramble and Union estates and Union Hill Pen in St Mary and another estate [illegible in the will but possibly Amity] in St Dorothy, all of which he left in trust to be sold for the benefit of his estate.

7. Isabella Charlotte Worley of New Barnes left £61,072 14s 2d on her death 30/01/1883. She was noted local philanthropist with several physical and cultural legacies, including Christ Church St Albans (1856) and 'Mrs Worley's Fountain' (1872).

1. Email from Anne Wares, 18/01/2018; Ancestry.com, England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975; Familysearch.org batch no. M04300-4; Ancestry.com, U.K. and U.S. Directories, 1680-1830 [database online]. The Ancestry public members tree 'Hartley Family Tree' by margtbillhartley16 gives a detailed account of these relationships.

2. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online]; Ancestry.com, London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 [database online]; Pallot's Baptism Index 178-1837; email from Anne Wares, 18/01/2018.

3. www.slavevoyages.org [accessed 12/03/2011].

4. Ancestry.com, Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886 [database online]. PROB 11/1566/347.

5. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online]; Pallots Marriage Index 1780-1832; National Probate Calendar 1860; London Gazette, Issue 23080, 06/03/1866, p. 25.

6. PROB 11/2041/156; Rubinstein shows Timperon bequeathing £120,000 in 1846, gives his address as 'New Barnet' and identifies Timperon & Dobinson as Timperon's merchant firm, but carries no personal detail, William D. Rubinstein, Who were the rich? A biographical dictionary of British wealth-holders Volume Two 1840-1859 MS reference 1846/20.

7. National Probate Calendar 1883. A study of Isabella Worley by Anne Wares won the Mayor's Prize for local St Albans history in 2012. For contemporary reports on the death of Isabella see Herts Advertiser including 03/02/1883, 24/02/1883, 01/12/1883.

We are grateful to Anne Wares for her assistance with compiling this entry.