Origin of Surname
J.B. Payne (ed.) in An Armorial of Jersey, (1865) suggested, as he did for many Jersey families, whether indigenous or otherwise, a foreign origin; in this case, that the name may be derived from an Italian family Volpi (see below). However, Stevens, Arthur and Stevens, in their scholarly work Jersey Place Names, Volume I, 533, note that Valpy, from Valepic, is recorded locally, in Jersey, from the 13th century. In Guernsey, the name is written Valpied.
The suggestion by Payne that the name is pronounced in Jersey as if written 'Volpi' certainly does not apply today, and the name is pronounced as it is spelt.
Early records
Collas, Richard and Thomas Valpy are listed in the Jersey Chantry Certificate of 1550 and there are further records going back to the 14th century (see below).
Although there were certainly members of the family in Jersey in the 20th century, none are listed in today's telephone directory. The family combined a maternal surname to become Hooper Valpy in the late 19th century, but although we previously suggested that it may have died out with Sarah Louise Katharine Hooper Valpy, who died in 2003 at the age of 36, we have now received further information from her elder half sister, Sandra Jane Hooper Valpy, who is still very much alive.
One of her three children, George Francis William Child Villiers, is the 10th Earl of Jersey, and, as she points out, the only holder of that title not only to have Jersey blood but also to have been born in the island.
Valpy dit Janvrin
It is believed that one branch of the family, probably during the 16th century, became known as Valpy dit Janvrin (Valpy called Janvrin) and that descendants of this branch eventually became known simply as Janvrin, but the exact timing and sequence of events is open to considerable doubt.
Charles Stevens, in his Comprehensive list of Jersey surnames, suggest that the Valpy dit Janvrins dropped the 'dit Janvrin' in 1826.
Payne's Armorial of Jersey
The name of Valpy is of great antiquity in Jersey. Mention of the name is made more than once in the Extente of 1331; and by local tradition the family is said to be an offshoot from the House of Volpi, of Italy, a branch of which came to Normandy on the return of the Normans from their Italian expedition, under Roger I, son of Tancred, in the latter half of the eleventh century. The name, in the local dialect, has always been pronounced precisely as if written Volpi.
Des Bois, in his Dictionnaire de la Noblesse de France, bears witness to the antiquity of the Italian and French branches of the family. It appears by this work that the family of Volpi or Vulpelli was one of antique nobility, settled at Lucca before the memory of man, whence a branch migrated to Florence in the thirteenth century, and assumed the prenomen of Biliotti, retaining, however, the original arms. The archives of Lucca, Florence, and Como, abound with entries of the names of members of this family, who have filled the highest offices in the secular and ecclesiastical government of their respective cities.
In Jersey, the original branch of the family settled in the parish of St John, of which Dr Richard Valpy, Headmaster of Reading School, and his brother, the Rev Edward Valpy, Headmaster of Norwich School, were members. As sound scholars and as pious divines these gentlemen are too well known in England to need more than a passing eulogy in these pages.
Variants
- Valpy, 1461
- Valpy dit Janvrin, 1668
- Vaulpie 1607
- Valepy 1617
- Valepic 1331
- Valepe 1309
- Valpie
Family records
Jersey family trees
- Descendants of Thomelin Valpy
- Descendants of Daniel Valpy-dit-Janvrin
- Descendants of Philippe Valpy dit Janvrin
- Descendants of Richard Valpy
- Descendants of Collas Valpy
- Descendants of Philippe Valpy
- Descendants of Abraham Valpy
- Descendants of Martin Valpy
- Descendants of Adrian Valpy dit Janvrin Added 2021
Church records
- Valpy baptisms in Jersey
- Valpy marriages in Jersey (groom)
- Valpy marriages in Jersey (bride)
- Valpy burials in Jersey
Great War service
Family wills
Burial records
Prominent family members
- Richard Valpy, headmaster of Reading Grammar School
- Edouard Valpy, headmaster
- John Thomas Valpy
- A history of Filleuls and Valpys
- The schoolmaster and publisher Valpys Added 2018
- James Valpy, the third son of Rector of St Mary Francois Valpy, and his wife Marie, nee Falle (they also had two daughters) was baptised in the parish in 1782. He joined the Royal Navy as a ship's surgeon and served on HMS La Hirondelle from 1804 until the ship was lost in 1808. There were only four survivors, James Valpy not among them.
Family homes
- Beaupre, St Helier
- Les Ruettes, St John, built for Richard Valpy and Catherine Chevalier in 1756
- Belle Vue, St Aubin
- Andover Lodge, St Peter
Family businesses
- John Valpy was a grocer at 72 King Street in the 1830s, '40s and '50s
- Francis Valpy was a draper at 20 Halkett Place in 1871
- Hatter and hosier W J Valpy was in business at 33 Queen Street in the 1880s
Family album
Richard Valpy (1754-1836) Heamaster of Reading School
Elsie Susan Brown, nee Valpy. In 1963, at the age of 80, she visited Jersey, where she was born, for the first time in 54 years. She died in Vancouver six years later
John Clay Valpy and family in the 1890s. John was the grandson of Richard Valpy
Family gravestones
Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs
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New records
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