Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 27 - Turpin
Turpin.
The surname of Turpin suggests to the English mind the notorious Dick Turpin. Haydn’s “Index of Biography” has the entry:—
Turpin, Richard, highwayman, born about 1711, executed 7th April 1739.
But the same serviceable book of reference gives two instances of the name in France, both eminently respectable, viz., Francois Henri Turpin, historian, born 1709, died 1799, and Pierre Jean Francois Turpin, botanist, born 1775, died 1840. The name occurs among our Huguenot refugees. There is the marriage, on 22nd May 1692, registered in the French Church called Le Temple in London, of Theodore Turpin, glover, native of Vendosme, son of Pierre Turpin and Jeanne Cailland. The Rev. Peter Turpin was ordained a Deacon in the Church of Ireland on 29th April 1766. In Edinburgh, Lewis Turpine, residenter, married Jean Gifford, and had a daughter, Louisa, born in Edinburgh, who was married to Matthew Baillie, stabler in Edinburgh, and was confirmed as the only executrix of the deceased Lewis Turpine, her father, on 4th August 1756. (John Turpin, a butcher, was buried in the west churchyard of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, London, on 19th April 1694.)
On reading over the surnames of refugees, one is surprised to meet such familiar names as Pascal, Quesnel, Racine, and Rousseau. Perhaps Fontenelle is represented, for in the register of Inveresk parish there is entered, on 28th June 1741, the baptism of Samuel (born 20th), son of John Fountainell, teacher of French to Mr. Hotham’s children, and Margaret Douglass, his spouse.