When Thomas Timperley’s father died in 1528 he became the ward of his maternal grandfather the 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Thenceforward his fortunes mirrored those of the Howard family. He had scarcely come of age and succeeded to his patrimony when disaster struck that house, and he presumably spent the next six years in obscurity on his Suffolk estates. In 1551 he came to the Exchequer to show proof that his ancestors had held a court leet at Hintlesham since the reign of Edward I.
In July 1553 Timperley was one of those who rallied to Queen Mary at Framlingham, and he was later to receive an annuity of £20 from the crown. His return to the Queen’s first Parliament he owed to Norfolk, who promptly reasserted control at Bramber; the other Member was the duke’s friend (Sir) John Baker I. Timperley might have been expected to sit again under Mary, especially in view of his marriage to a daughter of the master of the rolls, the duke’s old follower Sir Nicholas Hare: his failure to do so is perhaps a measure of the competition for places at the disposal of the new duke.
Timperley’s career under Elizabeth was to be impaired by his own and his children’s recusancy but he was still a prosperous landowner when he died on 13 Jan. 1594.