Talk:Richard Temple (bass-baritone)

Note re: Richard Temple, town planner
Someone has repeatedly attempted to vandalise this article, first replacing the entire contents with:


 * Richard Temple is an English Town Planner, best known for his work in the County of Buckinghamshire in England in 2005 and 2006. He was born in London before moving to the Isle of Wight at a young age. He is also famously known for being a big girls blouse on the football pitch and gypsying his mates tee-shirts.

and later adding:


 * More recently Richard Temple, of town planning fame, was known to reside in High Wycombe. Born in 1984 in London, he moved to the Isle of Wight befor heading to the University of Cardiff. He is reknowned as being one of the few remaining holders of a Temple Family Ring.

If this is all there is to say about Mr. Temple the town planner, then any article about him would likely run afoul of Wikipedia's vanity guidelines.

If it is possible to write an article on Mr. Temple the town planner &mdash; based on verifiable sources, and meeting Wikipedia's other guidelines &mdash; then the correct approach is to write a new article. Use the guidelines described in disambiguation, which explain how to create a new article and "disambiguate" it fron the existing one. Marc Shepherd 16:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Mrs Howard Paul
I've knocked out the footnote because it seems to me not really relevant to this article, (and at first glance I thought Temple was somehow embroiled in her matrimonial goings-on). Perfectly content to be told I'm wrong. Tim riley (talk) 12:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Replacing John Coates in Mirette
As Coates was a high tenor (a famous Gerontius etc) I wonder how Temple, as a bass baritone, came to take over his role? Tim riley (talk) 13:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * [Corrected response] The Baron is designated a bass role.  Hmmmm.  I don't know how Coates played it, but it's not difficult for some tenors to slum it in the baritone range, and he played some lower roles with the company.  Coates switched to another role that is designated bass-baritone (!?)  Perhaps they originally wrote the role higher and then revised the keys downwards for Temple.  Who knows? -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Richard Temple's Date of Birth
Every reference to Richard Temple seems to give his date of birth as 1847. However, this is not so - it was actually 1846. The proof of this is the entry in the official Index of Birth, Marriage & Deaths for England & Wales (BMD Index) which can be interrogated via http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl.

It seems that Richard Temple himself might have been the cause of this error as he became increasingly confused - or dishonest - about his year of birth. Here are the ages given in the 10-yearly censuses & other records with his actual age in brackets:

1846 0 (0) Registered birth

1851 5	(5) census

1861 15	(14)census

1871 24	(24)census

1872 26 (26)Marriage certificate

1881 35	(34)census

1891 43	(44)census

1891 42 (45)Marriage certificate

1901 52	(54)census

1911 61	(64)census

1912 65	(66) Registered death

He wasn't the only person to be economic with the truth regarding age. On 19th March 1891, he married Annie Maria Watts - known as Marie - though it seems he might have been living with her as husband and wife for at least 10 years. She claimed she was 32. She wasn't - she was 37. By the time she married her 3rd husband, Josiah Sellar, in 1916, she had knocked a full 16 years off her real age of 62.

When they married, both Richard and Marie were widowed. Richard had previously married Elizabeth Ellen Emmett on 9th July 1872 but she died in 1875.

Their son, Richard William Cobb, was born later in 1872 so Elizabeth must have been heavily pregnant when they married.

DSAllen (talk) 20:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

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Death of wife
According to newspaper reports, Elizabeth gave birth to a son on 6th May 1875. Both mother and son died three days later on 9th May. Both events were reported in the Hour (13 May 1875).Bkesselman (talk) 09:11, 16 August 2022 (UTC) British Newspaper Archive


 * Bkesselman, thanks. "The Hour"?  Is that a London newspaper?  What page number?  -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:35, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ssilvers, no problem. Yes, it's a London paper. The two entries are both on page 8. It seems a minor point, but there's so little information about Temple's private life that any little detail, however unhappy, seems important.Bkesselman (talk) 17:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * OK, I've added the cite to the article. Is there any author or byline named for the article?  All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:46, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * No author, they are just listings in the Births, Marriages and Deaths column. Best to you Bkesselman (talk) 18:03, 16 August 2022 (UTC)