Talk:William Temple Thomson Mason

About the Sir William Temple connection

Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, was the author of the Essay on the Original and Nature of Government (written circa 1672), "arguing, in direct contravention of the theory of a social contract elaborated by Hobbes and Locke, that state government arose out of an extension of paternal and patriarchal authority." The alleged Temple connection came through the marriage of Attorney General Stevens Thomson's marriage to an unidentified woman said to have a niece of Sir William Temple, and his daughter and sole heir Ann Thomson's marriage to George Mason (1690-1735), father of the famous George Mason and Thomson Mason. "The wife of attorney-general Thomson is said to have been a niece of Sir William Temple, and tradition asserts that Ann Mason as a child was a great favorite with her maternal great-uncle" wrote Kate Mason Rowland, in The Life and Correspondence of George Mason, 1725-1792. "When Mr. Thomson Mason was in England, he sojourned with Sir William Temple, his first cousin. He called his son after him." wrote Virginia Armistead Garber, in The Armistead Family, [Richmond, Virginia] 1930, p. 150). Such believable details accrue to support a perhaps uncritical claim.

The Temple connection was strongly asserted in the Mason family: William Temple Mason's plantation in Loudon County was called "Temple Hall", recalling the Temple seat, Temple Hall, Leicestershire. In the mid-19th century the secessionist J.M. Mason claimed that his great-grandmother was a daughter of Sir William Temple.

K.M.R., in Notes and Queries 4 April 1885, "A Niece of Sir William Temple", asked about the possibility of this connection through one of Sir William's brothers, noting that "according to the Temple pedigree there was but one daughter of Sir John Temple of Sheen; this was Lady Giffard, and she died leaving no children. Sir John Temple and Henry Temple were the brothers of Sir William Temple. Did the latter leave descendants; and was it possibly his daughter who married Sir William Thomson?" "The latter", apparently intended this Henry Temple, who is not listed in Burkes' Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, s.v. "Temple—Viscount Palmerston"). The descendants of Sir John (1632- 1704) are well-known: they include the viscounts Palmerston. The connection, however, could have equally been through one of the nine siblings of Dorothy Osborne, Lady Temple, a daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, who was the Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Guernsey under Charles I. Dorothy's sisterAnne, Lady Bell, had two sons who briefly emigrated to Virginia, but returned, according to James Elton Bell and Frances Jean Bell, Sir Robert Bell and His Early Virginia Colony Descendants, 2007, p. 7. There may have been others.

In spite of these family traditions, repeated by Eugene M. Scheel and John S. Salmon (References) one wonders, is there a genealogical connection with the Mason family of Virginia, or merely a respectful commemoration of a prominent author?--Wetman (talk) 02:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC).

More work needed

This article seems to have a big gap between the 1830s and the subject's death in Washington during the Civil War. I did some research on ancestry.com, and was surprised to see the absence of military service by his sons and grandchildren. Perhaps family or probate records indicate if this was a "house divided" and the political loyalties of this Mason compared to his relative U.S. Senator Mason, who joined the Confederate cause. While outside Virginia, and with limited time besides to devote to this painstaking work, I also can't trace who preceded nor succeeded this Mason in the House of Delegates, although I know many Masons were Whigs.Jweaver28 (talk) 22:34, 20 April 2018 (UTC)