Temple Leighton Phipson-Wybrants was the eldest son of Thomas Barroll Phipson and his wife Annie Sloane McCoan. He served with the 75th Regiment in Gibraltar, Mauritius and South Africa and attained the rank of captain. While in South Africa in 1874 he accompanied commissioner Charles P. Brownlee on a mission to Chief Kreli of the Xhosa nation and on his return wrote a series of articles on Kaffraria and its inhabitants for the Cape Monthly Magazine. He also contributed articles on South African affairs to British journals. In 1879 he became a member of the Royal Geographical Society.
In July 1880, a few years after he had retired from the military, he led a well equipped expedition to chart the region between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers in Mozambique. The work included astronomical observations to determine latitudes. He and his party surveyed the lower reaches and delta of what is now known as the Rio Incomati in Mozambique, which reaches the sea just north of Maputo. He died there of fever on his thirty-fifth birthday. The results of the survey were published in 1883 as "The delta and lower course of the Sabie River, according to the survey of the late Captain T.L. Phipson-Wybrants", in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (Vol. 5, pp. 271-274).
Phipson-Wybrants was married to the widow Georgina M.E. Battersby, born Wybrants.
