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Biography

This Member has not been identified. As Turpyn represented Camelford in successive parliaments, he presumably enjoyed strong links with the borough or its patrons. No one of this name has been located in the immediate vicinity of Camelford, although the surname was relatively common in Devon, particularly in the south of the county. An Anthony Turpyn was buried at Exeter in 1638, while a namesake who lived at Thorverton died around nine years later.1 The most plausible candidate, possibly a third local man, in 1619 penned a friendly and informal letter to William Carnsew, whose brother Sir Richard certainly influenced some Camelford elections. This Anthony Turpyn was at the time employed at Potheridge in north Devon by Carnsew’s cousin Sir Thomas Monck, who was himself returned for the borough in 1626.2 Nevertheless, uncertainty about Turpyn’s social status and a lack of evidence about his earlier career mean he cannot be firmly identified as the 1604 Member. Whoever Turpyn was, he received committee nominations in the Parliament’s second and third sessions, concerning the sale of books (18 Apr. 1606) and non-residence of clergy (4 Mar. 1607).3

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Author: Paul Hunneyball

Notes

• 1. Regs. Exeter Cathedral ed. W.U. Reynell-Upham and H. Tapley Soper (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1910), p. 64; Devonshire Wills ed. E.A. Fry, 613.
• 2. SP46/72, f. 270; Vivian, Vis. Devon, 16, 20, 342, 569; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 76-7.
• 3. CJ, i. 300a, 347b.