Part Two

William Homan's Ancestors in Ireland

Of the sons of Reverend Thomas we are mainly concerned with the second son William.  His first son, also Thomas, produced an Irish line of the family that continued to the present day – a direct descendant Marjorie Turpin, daughter of Horace and Kathleen Turpin of Greystones, County Wicklow, passed away in Portlaoise on 8th February 1986, and various other Turpin family notices have been observed in the personal columns of The Irish Times.

There is less known of the second son William, of St John’s parish in Dublin. He married a woman called Jane, was buried in 1673 and had two daughters – Margaret and Jane – and one son – again a William.

This William was a hosier in Dublin’s Kevin Street, and a Churchwarden of St Bride’s between 1731 -1734, so as well as being in business he kept his options open with the Lord.  On 8th May 1711 he married Elizabeth Tomlinson, (recorded in the parish register of St Catherine), and they had 6 children (including another William!).  

Their first son, Thomas, was baptised on 16th May 1720 and also became a hosier.  He subsequently took up business as a china manufacturer at No.15 Aungier Street in Dublin.  He was a great grandson of our first Reverend Thomas Turpin, and the great grandfather of William Homan Turpin.  Thomas married twice, firstly Mary Baily, with whom he had 2 sons – Peter and William, and secondly Susanna Brunell, by whom he had a 3rd son – inevitably then another Thomas.  His eldest son, Peter, was sent to Trinity College Dublin and ordained as a Deacon in 1766.  Robert Brown describes his life thus:

The Rev. PETER TURPIN, matric. T.C.D. 2 Feb. 1761, B.A. Vern. 1765, M.A. Aest. 1781, ordained deacon 27 April 1766 at St Luke's, Dublin, by the bishop of Killaloe, celebrated marriages in St Andrew's 1772 and St Anne's 1783. It is apparent he became tutor to Charles William, son of John Bury of Shannon Grove, Co. Limerick, whose matriculation at T.C.D. in Oct. 1781 shows he was educated by Mr Turpin. Charles Bury was largely responsible for the development of Tullamore, King's Co., and was created Baron Tullamore in 1797 and Earl of Charleville in 1800. Peter Turpin seemingly became private chaplain to the Bury family; in 1785 Charles Bury granted him at least four annuities of £100 secured on certain rents, one of which was later converted into an annuity for the life of his wife… The Rev. Peter m. 19 Jan. 1790 Henrietta eldest dau. of the Rev. Philip Homan of Surock, Co Westmeath, by his wife Mary Anne…: legal documents at this time describe the Rev. Peter as of Killboy, Co. Tipperary. Killboy was the seat of the Prittie family, and Charles Bury's mother had married secondly Henry Prittie, later Lord Dunally, so it is possible Turpin had been chaplain to the Prittes and tutor to young Charles Bury. It is clear from Bury letters that Peter Turpin acted as agent to Lord Charleville and was also a personal friend; there is mention of Charleville guests staying at Brookville with the Turpins, and to Peter Turpin's severe gout preventing him completing the accounts. The letters also contain greetings to be passed on to the Turpins and condolences to Lord Charleville on the loss of his old friend when Peter died in Dec. 1809.

So this was the Homan connection, and it was also Rev. Peter who established the family in Tullamore, Kings County.  With his wife Henrietta Homan, he had 9 children in just over 12 years.  Two of the sons became clergymen – the Rev. Charles Bury Turpin (no doubt named after Charles Bury), and the Rev. William Peter Turpin (who was a sponsor of the young William Homan Turpin after he was orphaned – see later).  Rev Charles Bury was the incumbant at Rahan, just outside Tullamore, where the small church still stands.

The second son, Philip, was a Lieutenant and Quartermaster in the 16th Light Dragoons – he died aged 45 after being shot through the hip in a duel that sounds as if it could have been the inspiration for that well-known Irish ballad – ‘Whiskey in the Jar’.  

Another son, Walter Tully died as an infant.  The fourth son, Thomas Dawson, attended Trinity College, as did Charles Bury and William Peter, but there is no record of his having graduated.  In his favour he did marry Charlotte Alicia Conyngham in 1832 aged 30, thereby bringing the Conyngham connection into the family.  True to form they had 7 children, including William Homan Turpin.    William Homan had 4 brothers, including Walter Thomas (see later), Charles Conyngham Turpin (who became a magistrate in the Falkland islands), Robert Harrison Turpin, and Philip Alexander Turpin.  He also had 2 sisters – Matilda Janet Turpin and Henrietta Elizabeth Turpin.  Henrietta was a bit mad and ended up living in care.

Philip Alexander also entered the clergy, and like his brother, ended up in South Africa (although in Zululand rather than the Cape).  The story of the Rev. Philip’s work in Zululand is another day’s work – suffice to say that he established a mission at St Luke’s at Engabeni in Umzimkulwana between 1892 and 1912, and supervised a school at Isandlwana in the 1880s – short years after the British defeat there in 1879.

 

Early Life

Relatively little, if anything, is known about William’s early life in Ireland.  He was born in Middleton (?), near Tullamore, County Offaly (then ‘King’s County’), on 2nd October 1835.  Tullamore is in the centre of Ireland and was probably then green, wet and wind-swept, as it is still today.  Tullamore itself was a thriving agricultural market town.  Ireland was a more populous country then than even today, with probably a peak in the 1840s of around 8 million people, before emigration and famine took their toll.

Foster describes how “by the 1830s the confessional basis of Irish political identification had become highly accentuated” (p.302) – leading to a growth in sectarianism.  The early political drive for independence and growth of Irish nationalism was gathering pace, with Daniel O’Connell pushing for the repeal of the 1802 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland.  Although there was a concomitant growth in Protestant evangelicals at the time, the Protestant psychology “was that of a minority on the defensive” (p.303).

William’s brother, Walter Thomas, was born in 1834.  Their parents, Thomas Dawson Turpin and his wife Charlotte Conyngham, who were married in 1832, both passed away at a relatively young age in 1843 – could this have been in some kind of accident?  Walter, as the older brother, inherited the estate, followed his father through Trinity College Dublin and became a missionary.