Thomas Tempest d.1692

Sir Thomas TEMPEST, 4th Bart (d.1692)

Biographical Note

Member of the Tempest family, an old-established northeastern family based in County Durham; from 1582, their seat was at Stella Hall, near Blaydon. They were mostly Roman Catholic throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, and were noted as recusants.

Books

The family acquired a significant number of books originally associated with Durham Priory and other northern monasteries, which passed down the generations. A number of these originally belonged to, or were alienated by, Stephen or Nicholas Marley, ex-monks who were deprived of their Durham canonries in the 1560s or 70s, and who were related by marriage to Nicholas Tempest (d.1538/9), the ancestor of the line of baronets. The 4th baronet, who was educated partly at the English College at Douai, is the one most readily associated with book ownership, as many of these books are identifiable from his inscription; ca. 120 such books are known, of which 80 survive in the library of Ushaw College, Durham. A bookplate, apparently made for but not used by him, also survives with his probate records. On his death, the library was valued at £60.

The ownership of important ex-monastic manuscripts by the 2nd baronet was known to Sir Robert Cotton, who is known to have sought (unsuccessfully) to acquire a number of them in the late 1620s. After the death of the 5th baronet, abroad, the estate was inherited by his sister Jane (d.1714), wife of William, 4th Baron Widdrington (1678-1743), attainted in 1716 for his involvement in the Jacobite rising. A group of manuscripts was then sold to Robert Harley, and other dispersals from the collection took place during the 18th century. A sizeable proportion of the library was transferred when the estate was inherited by Thomas Eyre of Hassop, Derbyshire, in 1774; the appointment of his kinsman Thomas Eyre (1748-1810) as the first President of Ushaw College (a Roman Catholic seminary founded in 1808) accounts for the presence of so many Tempest books there.

Characteristic Markings

The books are generally identifiable from the inscription of the 4th baronet on the titlepage, “Sr Thomas Tempest Baronet”. Many of the books of monastic origin survive in their contemporary bindings, and were not rebound or repaired while in Tempest hands.

Sources

• Doyle, A. I. The library of Sir Thomas Tempest: its origins and dispersal, in G. Janssens and F. Aarts (eds), Studies in seventeenth-century English literature … for Professor T. A. Birrell, 1984, 83-93.
• Tite, C. Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Thomas Tempest and an Anglo-Saxon gospel book, in J. Carley and C. Tite (eds.), Books and collectors 1200-1700, London, 1997, 429-439.