Brian and Thomas Duppa

Priest/Minister

In the north ambulatory of Westminster Abbey is the grave of Brian Duppa, Bishop of Winchester. His large gravestone is inscribed:

Hic Iacet Brianvs Winton" (Here lies Brian [bishop of] Winchester.

On the wall nearby is a marble tablet, by sculptor Belthasar Burman, erected by his widow. The Latin inscription can be translated:

Here Brian Duppa, a man consecrated to immortal memory, laid down the remains of his mortality. Born at Greenwich towards the close of the year AD 1588, that is on March 10th, he was fostered early on at the Royal School of Westminster (where he learnt Hebrew from Lancelot Andrewes, then Dean), and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford. As Master of Arts he was elected to All Souls' College, and then became Doctor of Divinity and Chaplain [to the Elector] Palatine; he subsequently returned to Christ Church, and presided there for ten years as Dean. However, greater responsibilites awaited so great a man, and higher office called. He was appointed Tutor to the Prince, of most august promise; then, graced three times over by the mitre, he himself graced the three [cathedral] churches of Chichester, Salisbury and finally, at Charles' Restoration, Winchester; in that office he also became a Knight of the Garter. Aged just 74, in the New Year of AD 1662, viz.on March 26th, at Richmond - where he had formerly been employed in the Prince's education, where during the times of calamity he had remained well out of the public eye, and where too he had built a fine Hospital in fulfilment of a vow - almost in the very embrace of his Royal pupil, he breathed forth his pious soul.

Brian was actually born at Lewisham in Kent (not far from Greenwich) and baptised there on 18th March, and was a son of Geoffrey Duppa, a merchant (not a clergyman as some histories say), and his wife Lucrece Marshall (or Maresall). At the time of his birth the New Year in England began on March 25th (Lady Day) and we would now call this the year 1589. The Prince mentioned was later Charles II. who visited him the day before his death. Brian lived at Richmond during the English Civil War and founded almshouses there. The coats of arms on his tablet show those of the three bishoprics he held, impaling his own arms "azure, a lion's gamb erased in fess between two chains or, on a canton of the last a rose gules" (a blue shield with a gold lion's leg and chains, with a red rose in a golden square in the top corner of the shield).

On 23rd November 1626 at St Dionis Backchurch in London Brian married Jane, daughter of Nicholas Killingtree, who was born in Papworth, Huntingdon. She was buried on 30th October 1665. They had no children

Sir Thomas Duppa

Brian's nephew, Sir Thomas Duppa, is buried in the north choir aisle of the Abbey. On a pillar there is a marble monument, possibly by the sculptor William Stanton. The inscription reads:

Near this place lyes the body of Sr THOMAS DUPPA Kt. who in his youth waited upon KING CHARLES the second, when he was PRINCE OF WALES, and under the tuition of the Revd.Dr DUPPA afterwards Ld.BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: by whom he was brought to Court, and by his Maties.[Majesty's] favour, made Gentleman Usher daily Waiter; and afterwards Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, in which office he dyed April the 25th 1694, aged 75.

The arms on the monument are the same as his uncle's. He was the only son of John Duppa of Eardisley in Herefordshire and his wife Dorothy and was born on 2nd April 1619. He was educated at Oxford and was apparently part of the retinue of the Prince of Orange and was knighted in 1683. By his wife Joan (daughter of William Wheeler, goldsmith) he had two sons and seven daughters, all baptised at Eardisley except for Thomas who was baptised at St Margaret's Westminster on 1st November 1663 and died childless on 17th July 1704.