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The first recorded use of our spelling of the family name DIPROSE is listed on a website called 'SurnameDB' and is that of Elizabeth Diprose, the entry refered to was a marriage dated 22nd June 1652.

Have just added this to the site you mentioned:
My great aunt (Lilian Fowler nee Diprose) found an article from the 1930s,I think, in the Kent Courier I think or it may have been the West Kent News which she showed me when I was about 10 - I don't know what happened to it. It said that we were Huguenot fro Alsac-Lorraine - the name Diprose came from Dupres - a name for people of the fields - gipsies. We arrive in the early 1600s and many worked with wood. Several churches in Kent and Sussex had records of carving and woodwork from the family members.
This coincides well with my own experience as my great grandfather was a woodsman and ran a saw mill for sometime in West Peckham. Also we all have dark olive complexions and a hook of a nose - right down to the current generation

Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Diprose#ixzz0q3od45h3

Old posting, may be better to send a message direct to Keith by clicking on his name
Liz

for the record

This unusual and interesting name is of French locational origin, introduced into England in the form of "de Preaux" and Anglicized to "Diprose" and "Deeprose". There are seven places called "Preaux" in Normandy alone, such as "St. Michael de Preaux" and "Notre Dame de Preaux", so the name is likely to have been introduced first by the Normans after the Conquest of 1066. However, the recordings of the name suggest that it was re-introduced by the French Huguenot refugees fleeing religious persecution on the Continent in the late 16th and 17th Centuries, as in the first recordings below. The French word "preaux" means "inner courtyard" or "covered yard". The variant form as "Deeprose", is recorded at St. Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey, London, on July 3rd 1842, when George and Harriet Deeprose were witnesses at the christening of their daughter, also called Harriet. Other children of George Deeprose were Thomas, christened on December 21st 1845; William, on June 16th 1850; and Susanna, on January 21st 1855, all at the same church. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Elizabeth Diprose, which was dated 22nd June 1652, marriage to John Wilson, at Horsmonden, Kent, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, known as "The Great Protector", 1649 - 1658. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Diprose#ixzz0q6fNyp7R