HOF – Temprell

Firbeck Hall was one the grand backdrop for the area where our Temprell family were born and raised. A quiet agricultural village on the borders of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, Firbeck today still retains its farming land around a smart, middle class appearance. The hall has long since disappeared as a stately home and is currently being converted into luxury housing but the retained outline does enough to give a sense of what it was in its heyday.

Built almost 150 years before the first of our Temprells lived in the area, it would have been the predominant building of the area. Thomas Temprell and Rebekah Barlow had a family of seven children in Firbeck, St Martin’s church in the village being kept busy with christenings.

There followed a slow drift away from the area towards Sheffield and Chesterfield as records for the following generations have them living in Aston, Eckington, Woodhouse and Whittington before some were found in Handsworth, where our direct line lived. Little is known about their occupations but other than the farming work in Firbeck, later generations were miners. We do have a William Temprell (b 1870) who aged 11 was shown aboard a “Vessel” in the 1881 census, which would suggest that poverty in the family may have contributed to him being educated by this method.

There is an impression that the families of the late 19th century Temprells moved frequently although remaining within a smallish overall area. Those in Woodhouse for example had children born in Handsworth, Beighton, Unstone and Darnall. Maybe paying the rent was a hard task.

Temprells served the country well during the Great War with Thomas Henry Temprell losing his life in 1916 at Salonika.

His sister, Elizabeth firstly married James O’Brien and then Thomas Pridmore thus creating the link between families. Their daughter Iris Pridmore then married Edward O’Hara to further unite the lines that lead to us as direct descendants.