A branch of the Tempest family of Stella Hall,
Blaydon, County Durham, descended from Rowland Tempest, third son of Thomas Tempest, and his wife, Elizabeth, and brother to Sir Nicolas Tempest (1553–1625), 1st Baronet of Stella. Successive members engaged political careers representing the county or City of Durham from 1675 until 1813.
Rowland Tempest was a merchant and hostman (or fitter) of Newcastle, involved in the shipment of coal. The records of the Hostman's Company list the volume of trade in 1602 as 9,085 tons in 85 keels, of which Rowland ships 250 in 1.5.M. He married Barbara, daughter of Thomas Calverley of Littlebourne, Durham, sister of Sir John Calverley Kt.
Sir Thomas Tempest Kt. (1594-died after 1652), eldest son of the above was a Durham lawyer. Educated Queens College, matric. 23 November 1610, aged 16. Barrister at Law,
Lincoln's Inn 1620, a bencher 1636. He acted as Attorney General of the Bishopric of Durham (c. 1634–1640) and in October 1640 as
Attorney-General for Ireland in succession to Sir
Richard Osbaldeston when he described is as a Recorder, of Lincoln's Inn. He was
knighted at
Dublin in December, the same year. In County Durham he purchased the manors of The Isle, south west of
Bradbury (1635) and Swainston, north of Wynyard and
Embleton, from his Calverley and Bulmer relatives (1628). He married, firstly, in 1620, his distant relative, Eleanor Tempest, daughter of William Tempest and Eizabeth More of Sommerton, Oxfordshire and secondly in 1633 Elizabeth widow of Robert Crewes of Soper Lane, St. Pancras. His brother Francis is listed as Barrister at Law,
Gray's Inn and was Recorder of Durham 1642. During 1644 his regiment fought at
Northallerton, where its Lt. Colonel Gerard Salvin was killed and in July at
Marston Moor where the royalist cause in the north was irretrievably lost. Retreating into Lancashire with the remnants of
Prince Rupert's forces he joined the small band of volunteers defending Lathom House, home of the
Earl of Derby. Despite fierce resistance this was forced to capitulate December 1645 with the defenders allowed to march to the nearest friendly forces. John Tempest occurs as Governor and defender of
Skipton Castle which surrendered to Parliament 21 December 1645. Labeled an "obstinate
delinquent" by the Parliamentary Commissioners alongside his father and father-in-law who compounded for their estates in 1647. He himself did so in 1649. With his cousin, Sir Richard Tempest Bt. of Stella, he took part in the second Civil War and is listed among the prisoners following the action at
Cartington Castle, Northumberland in 1648. During the Commonwealth, in 1656 he is mentioned by
Marmaduke Langdale as among those Cavaliers of the Bishopric whom he deems "eminently reliable" and conversely by Cromwell's agents as the "leader of a cabal whose members include Col. Ralph Millot and William Davison". After the
restoration of
Charles II he was nominated a
Knight of the Royal Oak in 1661, the order being "set aside for fear of inciting the heats and jealousies of the late times". In October 1662 he was appointed by
John Cosin, Bishop of Durham, as a Deputy Lord Lieutenant and Receiver for County Durham, he seems already to have been Colonel of the Train Bands as on 17 September 1662 he is ordered by the Bishop to "search houses and arrest George Lilburne and Thomas Brown of Sunderland". The former was Mayor of Sunderland and brother of the Parliamentarian, General
Robert Lilburne of
Thickley, the most powerful man in Durham in the 1650s. From 1666, along with other Durham freeholders, Tempest petitioned for representation for the county, as distinct from the City, of Durham in Parliament, a privilege steadfastly opposed by the Bishop. A successful bill was eventually brought and on 21 June 1675 after a three-day election, John Tempest was declared elected as the first Member of Parliament for the County. An anonymous libel on the
Earl of Danby's organisation published in 1677 observes that "John Tempest a papist, a pensioner and a court dinner man hath secured a customers place at Hull for his son". He was returned again in the election of 1678. On 17 January 1678 he is appointed as Newcastle Commissioner for sea coals and on 21 March the same year receives a grant of searcher of the port. In 1680 he and his son William Tempest sold The Isle to William Bigg. In 1680 and 1683 he is listed as a witness as to the Roundhead sympathies of
John Blakiston of Newcastle and a JP, son of the regicide John Blakiston. In 1683 he and William Tempest purchased the manor of Little Hutton near Hutton Magna (Gilling West Wapentake) Yorkshire from the Edens. In July 1688 he is reappointed as Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Durham with his son William. He was buried at Forcett, North Yorkshire, on 26 July 1697, his daughter Margaret having married Richard Shuttleworth of
Forcett and
Gawthorpe Hall (Lancashire)
William Tempest (31 January 1653 – 16 March 1700), second son of John Tempest of The Isle and Old Durham and Elizabeth daughter and sole heiress of John Heath, represented the City of Durham as Member of Parliament in 1678, 1680 and 1689. [2] He was a defeated candidate in the elections of 1675, 1679 and 1688. [3]. Styled Colonel Tempest in 1694, an adherent to the Country Interest. He may have been implicated in the conspiracy of
John Fenwick against William III, being recorded as under house arrest at his home of Old Durham, 19 March 1695. In 1677 he married Elizabeth Sudbury, niece of the Dean of Durham and sister of Sir John Sudbury Bt. of Eldon, County Durham.
John Tempest (1679–1737), eldest son of the above was elected as the Member of Parliament for the County of Durham in 1705. [5]. He married Jane, daughter and heiress of Richard Wharton of Durham, bringing to the family extensive properties in the Houghton-le-Spring and Penshaw areas and significantly expanding the family's coal mining interests through the lease of the collieries at Rainton from the Dean and Chapter.
John Tempest (23 April 1710 – 17 May 1776 of Sherburn and
Wynyard, County Durham, was a landowner and Member of Parliament, the eldest son of John Tempest (1679–1737) and Jane Wharton (1683–1736). helped make them among the largest shippers of coal via Sunderland. In 1758, from the Rainton coalfield, 20866 chaldrons of coal were shipped abroad (a chaldron weighed two tons 13 hundredweight). He represented the City of Durham in the Parliaments of 1741 (elected 3 April 1742), when he is listed among those voting against Hanoverian troops being taken into British pay, 1747, 1754 and 1761. He married (at Kirk Merrington, 9 May 1738) to Frances Shuttleworth (17??–1771).
John Tempest Jr. (1739 – 12 August 1794) was a County Durham landowner, Tory politician and Member of Parliament. A member of the Old Durham branch of the Tempest family, He married Ann Townsend (17??–1817), daughter of Joseph Townsend of Honington, Warwickshire. Their only son, John Wharton Tempest (1772–1793, the subject of a painting by George Romney), predeceased them as a result of a riding accident. The Tempest estates were devolved to his sister's son Henry by the Rev. Sir Henry Vane Bt. of Long Newton upon condition that he assume the name and arms of Tempest.
Sir Henry Vane-Tempest, 2nd Baronet (1771–1813), replaced his uncle as M.P. for Durham City, 17 October 1794, and was the ancestor of the Vane-Tempest-Stewarts,
Earls Vane and
Marquesses of Londonderry. ==Tempest baronets of Tong, Yorkshire==