Famous Huguenots
David Garrick (1717-79) was an English actor, playwright and theatre manager. He was the third child of Peter and Arabella Garrick and was born in Hereford. David’s grandfather, David de la Garrique, was a Huguenot who fled Bordeaux, France, when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. His son Peter was brought to England two years later.
David travelled to London, alongside Samuel Johnson, in order to seek fame as an actor. He made his legendary debut as Richard III in east London in 1741. In January 1742 William Pitt described Garrick as ‘the best actor the English stage has ever produced.’ From then on, his reputation and fame soared.
He became the manager of Drury Lane Theatre in 1747 and directed its productions for 29 years, before giving it up in 1776. He died in 1779 and is buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Albert Arnold Gore, better known as Al Gore, was born on the 31st March 1948. He was the son of Al Gore Senior and his second wife Pauline LaFon. Al Gore Senior was a Democratic congressman and senator from Tennessee and the third child of Alan Arnold Gore and Margaret Denny. The Gore line came from Scottish-Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia, and later moved to Tennessee in the mid 1700’s after the American Revolutionary War.
Al Gore junior graduated from Harvard University in 1969 and enlisted in the army, serving in the Vietnam War as a military reporter from 1969 through 1971. He then became a reporter for The Tennessean, a newspaper based in Nashville, Tennessee. While working (1971–76) for that paper, Gore also studied philosophy and law at Vanderbilt University. Following his father into politics Gore was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and in 1991 he was one of only 10 Democratic senators who voted to authorize the use of American military force against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. In 1992 he was chosen by Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, to be his running mate, and Gore became vice president when Clinton defeated Republican incumbent George Bush in the 1992 presidential election.
Let’s look at his second wife Pauline LaFon who was also a native of Tennessee. The name is a French variant of Lafont and this might lead one to consider a French Huguenot connection. The LaFon family name was found in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Scotland between 1840 and 1920. The most LaFon families were found in the USA in 1880 when there were 55 LaFon families living in Virginia. This was about 30% of all the recorded LaFon's in the USA.
Pauline’s father Walter Lewis LaFon (1887-1950) born in Tennessee was a state highway employee. He married a girl called Julia Ann Müller, probably from a German Lutheran background. Pauline’s grandfather Simpson Washington LaFon (1855-1910) also born in Tennessee was a carpenter by trade and then a farmer; her great grandfather Emmanuel LaFon although born in North Carolina, by the age of 53 was farming in Tennessee where he died in 1891. His father William LaFon (1791-1871) was born in North Carolina, but died in Texas. His father Isaac LaFon (1754-1850), however, was born in Hessen, Germany and came to Pennsylvania in 1773 as an indentured servant to a Mr Byers. Within two years he had run away from his Master possibly joining the army, but probably just moving around although he did serve in the American Revolution in the Lincoln County Regiment, North Carolina. In the 1790 census he was listed as Isaac Levaun, head of a family of 4 females and 3 males under 16. Nine years later on 5 February 1789, he married Mary (Molly) Rosemond, his neighbour's daughter. This is assumed to have been his second marriage. William, Isaac's son, would probably have been by his first marriage. Sadly, by the 1850 census he is listed in a town called Catawba, North Carolina, aged 96, a Pauper, living in the household of an Elijah Cline, Keeper of the Poor and apparently froze to death in January 1850. He was buried in the St. John's Lutheran Church Cemetery in Conover, North Carolina. The founders of the church were largely Pennsylvania Germans.
Why did Isaac leave Germany? In the 17th C, the lands of Germany were constantly being divided into sub territories although still under the power of the Catholic
Alexander Hamilton is regarded as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He was one of the signatories of the Constitution of the United States of America and was a delegate from New York.
Hamilton was born about 1755, apparently on the island of Nevis, British West Indies. He was the illegitimate son of a Scottish merchant, James Hamilton, and Rachel Faucette, an English-French Huguenot.
After his father abandoned the family in 1765, and his mother’s untimely death three years later, Hamilton became a ward of his mother’s family and moved to America to attend King’s College (now Columbia University, New York). In his twenties he became George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Revolutionary War. After the war he became the first Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 and was the creator of the US central banking system. He died in 1804, after being shot in a duel.
Source: http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/birth-alexander-hamilton & http://www.adherents.com/people/ph/Alexander_Hamilton.html
Pierre Harache (c.1639-c.1712)
Pierre Harache was the the first Huguenot goldsmith to be admitted to the Goldsmiths Companyand the best known Huguenot maker of candlesticks. He was born in Rouen in 1639 and arrived in England in 1681.
Whereas in England a young man would learn his craft from a master, and then either remain working for him as a journeyman or set himself up nearby, in France, when a goldsmith had completed his apprenticeship he would travel about and pick up new ideas and skills. Thus a French goldsmith had a much wider repertoire than his 'English counterpart.
In 1682 Harache was admitted to the Goldsmiths Company. Foreign craftsmen had never been welcomed by English silversmiths and in 1574 Freedom of the Goldsmiths’ Company was denied to all foreigners. Harache was obviously highly thought of as he was granted the Livery in 1687 and granted the Freedom of the City, which was only granted under very special circumstances.
He made some of the earliest cast candlesticks with faceted, cast baluster stems. His work was of such high quality that it is referred to today as having heralded a new era in the production of English silver. Among his patrons were the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Somerset, and the Duke of Marlborough.
The First Huguenot Silversmiths of London : David McKinley
https://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095920123
https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=86024
Sir John Houblon was the first Governor of the Bank of England from 1694 to 1697.
He was born in March 1632 and died in January 1712 aged 79. He was the third son in a family of ten sons and three daughters. He became more eminent than any of his nine brothers, four of whom were also prosperous merchants and two of whom served on the Board of the Bank of England.
The Houblons were descendants of a Protestant family from Lille, and Sir John had close ties with the French Protestant church in Threadneedle Street where he was an elder. He was a successful merchant, trading with Portugal, Spain and the Mediterranean.
He was a member of the Grocers livery company of which he was Master in 1690/91 and was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1695.
He married Mary Jurin in 1660, who came from a Flemish Protestant family and they had five sons and six daughters, but only two sons survived their father.
He had a magnificent house just off Threadneedle Street on the site later occupied by the Bank of England and also acquired a country house at High Ongar in Essex.
In 1994, to mark the tercentenary (300 years) of the foundation of the Bank of England, Sir Johnʼs portrait was included on a new £50 note, which was withdrawn ten years later.
Esther Inglis (1571-1624) was one of the finest calligraphers of the Tudor and Stuart period. She produced over sixty exquisitely illuminated documents and little books, illustrated with flowers and with embroidered covers. Most of her books were Protestant religious texts including psalms from the Geneva Bible and verses from the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
Inglis presented many of her books to members of the English court including Queen Elizabeth I, the Earl of Essex, and James VI, and to French and Dutch officials who were working for the Protestant cause.Inglis was born to Nicholas Langlois and Marie Pressot in 1571.
Her father was a schoolteacher who later became Master of the French School in Edinburgh, and her mother was also a calligrapher. The family fled to England around 1570.
Hablot Knight Browne, who went by the pseudonym ‘Phiz’, was a famous book illustrator who worked with Charles Lever,Harrison Ainsworth and, most notably, Charles Dickens. Browne was of Huguenot descent, was born in Lambeth in 1815, and he was the fourteenth of Catherine and William Loder Browne’s fifteen children.
At a young age Browne was apprenticed to the skilled engraver William Finden. However, he soon found that he was unsuited for engraving. In 1833, he was awarded an important prize from the Society of Arts for a drawing he made of John Gilpin, which led him to abandon engraving altogether, in order to develop his skills in other mediums, such as etching and drawing.
Browne met Charles Dickens in early 1836, when Dickens was looking for someone to illustrate The Pickwick Papers.Thus began an important friendship and working relationship for both men, with Browne illustrating ten books, including David Copperfield and Bleak House.
Sir Robert Ladbroke (1713-1773) was a prominent member of the Huguenot community in East London. He was a merchant banker in the City, Lord Mayor of London in 1747 and, from 1754, a Member of Parliament. Ladbroke was married to the daughter of John Peck, an influential dyer in the Spitalfield’s silk industry.
A monument to Ladbroke, sculpted by John Flaxman RA and erected in 1794, sits on the north side of Christ Church in Spitalfields. He is displayed in his Lord Mayor’s robes.
Sources: Dan Cruickshank, Spitalfields: Two Thousand Years of English History in One Neighbourhood (London: Windmill, 2017) and http://www.christchurchspitalfields.org/PRD_ProductDetail.aspx?cid=387&prodid=4056
Paul Lamerie was born in the Netherlands in April 1688 and died in August 1751 aged 63.
He was the son of a Huguenot French nobleman who had left France following the issue of the Edict of Nantes, which forbade the Protestant religion in France. His father moved to London in 1689.
In August 1703 Paul de Lamerie became apprenticed to a London goldsmith of Huguenot origin, Pierre Platel. Ten years later, de Lamerie opened his own workshop and was appointed goldsmith to George I in 1716.
His early work is in the simple Queen Anne styles, following classical French models, but later de Lamerie is particularly noted for his elaborate Rococo style which was fashionable in the 1730’s.
Among his customers were Tsarinas Catherine and Anna, Sir Robert Walpole, the Duke of Bedford and other members of the English aristocracy. He served on the Goldsmiths’ Company committees, and also served in the Westminster Volunteers.
A two-handled silver cup and cover by Paul de Lamerie, dated 1720, was among the wedding gifts of Queen Elizabeth II.
Paul de Lamerie died in London and was buried in St. Anne’s Church, Soho. There is a memorial plaque at the site of his workshop, 40 Gerrard Street, which was unveiled in January 1992.
Nicholas Lanier (1588-1666) was a composer, the court musician to King Charles I and Charles II. He was the first to hold the title of ‘Master of the King's Music’, an honour given to musicians of great distinction; the musical equivalent to the title of Poet Laureate.
He was a singer in the King's Consorte, played the lute in the King’s Orchestra, and played the viola da gamba.
Lanier was a descendant of a French Huguenot family of royal musicians, the Lanière family. His family fled France to escape persecution and arrived in England in 1561.
The Le Blond Family
My father, Robert (Bob) Le Blond (1916-1998) began our genealogy research, starting with a family bible.
There were many Roberts in our family, including the first to arrive in England, settling in Spitalfields with his son, also Robert. I am not sure where in France they were from, with some evidence pointing to Dieppe and other suggestions including La Tremblade in the South West. The second Robert married Elizabeth Mahjou (or Mahieu) in 1695 at St Botolph, Aldgate, but this was his second marriage as he is described as a widower on the marriage certificate. He became a denizen in 1699-1700. His will sheds more light, with indications of children with his first wife. His third child with his second wife, another Robert, is my six times great grandfather.
Robert, born 1702, was baptized at the Huguenot Chapel at the Artillery. He was indentured to watchmaker Peter Lormier in 1717 and married Madeleine Lormier (his master’s daughter). In 1748, he is described as a ‘watchmaker to Edward Welch, Blacksmiths’ Company’. Robert and Madeleine had four children, of which the first, another Robert, was my direct ancestor.
This next Robert was born in 1732 and was an apprentice in the Blacksmiths’ Company. He married Elizabeth Chausac (or Chansat) in 1754. The Huguenot Museum found an interesting document, which is a marriage bond in the sum of £200 to the Bishop of London should there be a legal reason why the marriage could not take place. This Robert is the first to have evidence of residence in Spitalfields, at Elder Street, in 1768. He was a Director of the French Hospital in 1785.
Captain Peter Lekeux (1684-1743) was one of most prominent master weavers in the English silk industry and one of the ten most wealthy Huguenots in Britain.
Peter Lekeux was born in London. The Le Keux family were Walloons who were living in Sandwich and Canterbury in the 1560s, some of them were Pastors at the French Church in Canterbury. The Lekeux family were among the most important in the English silk industry; Peter Lekeux’s uncle Colonel Peter Lekeux was Founder of the Royal Lustring Company and helped to formulate policy in the Weavers’ Company. His son, also named Peter, was also a weaver of Flowered silks and rose to become Upper Bailiff, the highest rank in the Weavers’ Company
Lekeux and James Leman were the first Huguenots to serve on the Court of the Weavers’ Company and he soon became a trusted member, representing the Company on committees and giving evidence to Parliament and the Commissioners for Trade. Lekeux bought at least 18 designs from Anna Maria Garthwaite, for very expensive and fashionable designs woven with silver thread. He became very prosperous (he would have been a millionaire many times over by today's standards) and owned a large house in the new quarter of Spitalfields, the Old Artillery Ground. He left £7,400 in his will which would be over £1 million today.
His title of Captain refers to his rank in the local militia. The militia (sometimes called Trained Bands) were an important part of defence and served as a reserve force. They were made up of small groups of local men,usually of moderate wealth, who purchased their own weapons and trained together for the purpose of providing local defence.
Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century: Natalie Rothstein
Huguenots in Britain and France: Irene Scouloudi
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O15327/dress-fabric-garthwaite-anna-maria/
The Early Silk weavers of London and Spitalfields: Richard Edmunds
‘Captain’ Peter LeKeux 1649-1723
Captain Peter Lekeux was one of most prominent master weavers in the English silk industry and one of the ten most wealthy Huguenots in Britain.
The Lekeux family were Walloons who had been living in Sandwich and Canterbury from the 1560s, but some members moved to the capital including Peter who became a citizen and weaver of London. At one time, he served as a Justice of the Peace for the Tower Liberty as well as serving at various times as a Commissioner of the Sewers, a Deputy-Lieutenant of the Royal Hamlets and a Commissioner of the Land Tax for Middlesex. He was Founder of the Royal ‘Lustring’ Company (black silk) and helped to formulate policy in the Weavers’ Company.
Captain Peter LeKeux lived at 3 Fournier Street - the last street to be built on the Wood-Michell estate in Spitalfields, London. It was developed in response to the settlement of a significant community of wealthy French Huguenots and although initially intended as domestic dwellings, many were immediately occupied by the silk industry. The houses mainly date from the 1720s and together they form one of the most important and best-preserved collections of early Georgian domestic town-houses in Britain.
Fournier Street was designed to be both well-appointed and of a higher standard than previous residential developments in the local area and consequently the houses were purchased and leased by the 'master' silk-weavers and silk mercers.
Peter’s title of ‘Captain’ refers to his rank in the local militia. The militia (sometimes called Trained Bands) were an important part of defence and served as a reserve force. They were made up of small groups of local men, usually of moderate wealth, who purchased their own weapons and trained together for the purpose of providing local defence. In the early stages of the 1642 to 1646 First English Civil War, the Trained Bands provided the bulk of the forces used by both Royalists and Parliamentarians but were often unwilling to serve outside their home areas. They were rapidly replaced by more professional bodies, the most important being the New Model Army set up by Oliver Cromwell.
In 1681 Captain Peter married Mary Marescaux, a fellow Huguenot and they had more than 10 children, including his son Peter junior who became his apprentice in 1730. After the death of Captain Peter, the younger Peter became a master in the Flowered Silks branch of the Worshipful Company of Weavers and rose to the Company's highest office, Upper Bailiff, in July 1764.
He bought floral designs from Anna Maria Garthwaite, acknowledged as one of the premiere English silk designers of her day. A waistcoat made by them and now in the V&A, is made from a silk brocade woven with three types of silver gilt thread and multi-coloured silks. He also, like his father, became very prosperous and owned a large house in the new quarter of Spitalfields, the Old Artillery Ground. He left £7,400 in his will which would be over £1 million today.
James Leman (1688-1745)
James Leman was a celebrated silk designer and master weaver and one of the the first Huguenots to serve on the Court of the Weavers’ Company. The family came to London from Canterbury and possibly came originally from Tourcoing.
At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to his father, Peter, and lived in Stewart Street, Spitalfields. James Leman trained as a designer as well as a manufacturer, which was unusual for weavers at that time.The Victoria and Albert Museum's earliest designs by him are dated 1706, just four years into his apprenticeship. In 1711 he was admitted as 'Foreign’ Master' to the Weavers' Company, and on his father's death in 1712 he took over the family business.
Leman rose to high office in the Weavers' Company, becoming a Liveryman. This was exceptional; the Company was reluctant to make the ‘foreign masters’ liveryman men. In 1731 he was elected Renter Bailiff, second-in-command in the Company.
James Leman’s album is held in the V&A and is the oldest surviving set of silk designs in the world.  It contains ninety patterns created when he was a young man. The designs are most striking, mixing bold colours and natural and invented flowers, geometric patterns and architectural elements. On the back are explanations of how to translate the design into the woven cloth. They used metal threads which came alive by candlelight.
Sources:
www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/j/about-james-leman/
www.spitalfieldslife.com/2017/09/17/james-leman-silk-designer
The silk industry in London, 1702-1766, Thesis (MA), University of London 1961: Rothstein, Natalie
David Lestourgeon (1660-1731) was a watchmaker who seems to have specialised in commemorative watches. In the Museum of London there is an example of a watch commemorating the death of William III, and another adorned with a bust of Queen Anne in the British Museum.
Lestourgeon was born in Rouen and moved to London in 1681. He was made a Member of the London Clockmakers’ Company (1698 -1731).
Lestourgeon was one of many Huguenots who brought with them to London important knowledge and skills from the major French clock and watch making centres.
Lestourgeon is mentioned in The Huguenot Clockmakers of Spitalfields, will be republished Spring 2019. ​ https://www.richedmunds.co.uk/huguenot-3
Sources:
The Quiet Conquesthttps://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/london-open-and-always-has-been
The son of Huguenot refugees in Geneva, Liotard (1702-1789) is best known for his pastel paintings and portraits. His work is characterised by his careful craftsmanship and attention to detail, which contrasted the more common use of pastel as a loose, light medium, and highlighted the realism of Liotard’s approach.
Pastels were also easily transportable, allowing Liotard to travel widely in search of new subjects and commissions. He studied in Paris and then moved all over Europe including to Rome, Amsterdam, Constantinople, Vienna, and London. His explorations led him to paint some of the most famous individuals of his era, such as Marie Antoinette, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the actor (and Huguenot) David Garrick.
He met his wife, Marie Fargues, the daughter of a Huguenot merchant living in Amsterdam, on his travels and went on to create studies and portraits of her and their children together.
Sources: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/jean-etienne-liotard-a-beginners-guide and https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/09/jean-etienne-liotard-review-edinburgh-amazing-world-of-mc-escher
A Sally Lunn is a large bun or teacake made with yeast dough including cream, eggs, and spice, similar to the sweet brioche breads of France.
It is served warm and sliced, with butter. It was first recorded in 1780 in Bath in south west England.
There are many myths about the origins of the Sally Lunn.
It is said that the recipe was brought to Bath in the 1680s by a Huguenot refugee called Solange Luyon, who became known as Sally Lunn.
Walter John de la Mare (1873-1956)
This award winning poet, novelist and short story writer is renowned for his rich imagination and spiritual romanticism. He wrote prolifically for both children and adults including psychological horror stories such as Seaton's Aunt and All Hallows and his famous poem for children The Listeners, which has stood the test of time.
De La Mare was born in Charlton, Kent and went to school at St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School in London. At sixteen he started work in the statistics department of Anglo-American Oil where he worked for many years.
Having four children, he found it difficult to balance family life with writing but in 1908 he received a Civil List pension and was then able to concentrate solely on his creative work.
His awards included The James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and the 1947 Carnegie Medal for British children's books.
Source http//www.poetryarchive.org/poet/walter-de-la-mare
Daniel Marot (1661-1752) was was best known as an architect, decorative designer and engraver, but his talents also included furniture and fabric design, interior and garden design, theatre sets, and tapestries. He was born in Paris and left France in 1685, emigrated to Holland where he entered the service of the Prince of Orange. In 1694 he followed the Prince, by that time William III of England, to London.
Marot was appointed one of William III’s architects and Master of Works and designed the parterres and the Great Fountain garden at Hampton Palace, the Marble Hall at Petworth House, and William’s gilded state coach which today is the ceremonial coach of the Speaker of the House of Commons. He published engravings of his designs, which enabled his work to be disseminated widely, and gained popularity by craftsmen and artists all over Europe. Daniel Marot can truly be called an ambassador of the Louis Quatorze style.
In 1698 he returned to Holland in 1698 where he continued to work until his death.
Sources:
Huguenots in Britain and their French Background, 1550–1800 pp 113-124 | Huguenot Upholsterers and Cabinet-makers in the Circle of Daniel Marot by Gervase Jackson-Stops
http://www.furniturestyles.net/european/english/daniel-marot.html
http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/873/daniel-marot-french-about-1663-1752/
http://historicinteriors.info/2015/06/04/daniel-marot-ambassador-of-courtly-taste/
https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/the-gardens-at-hampton-court-palace/#gs.UcIT6es
Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain by Robert Winder
Harriet Martineau (1802 – 1876)
Harriet Martineau was a Victorian sociologist, writer and social reformer. She was born in Norwich to wealthy parents of French Huguenot descent. Her father Thomas Martineau was the owner of a textile mill; her mother Elizabeth Rankin was the daughter of a sugar refiner. They believed in equality for all of their eight children.
Harriet was one of the first female journalists, championing important social reform and women’s rights. She wrote over 50 books in her lifetime, becoming very wealthy in the meantime, but had become a novelist to make a living. In her time she was renowned and celebrated for her clear style and the way in which her ideals and opinions were shown through the form of narrative in her stories. She argued vociferously against slavery and inequality.
For most of her life Harriet was deaf but travelled widely and leaves a vast legacy of intellectual analysis which has inspired modern sociologists.
Source http://historysheroes.e2bn.org/hero/whowerethey
https://www.thoughtco.com/harriet-martineau-3026476
HENRI DE MASSUE (DE RUVIGNY), EARL OF GALWAY
Henri de Massue was a French Huguenot soldier and diplomat who served on behalf of the British Crown in the Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession, being later rewarded by appointment as the Earl of Galway in Ireland.
Henri de Massue was born in April 1648 in Paris, the son of the Huguenot army general and French diplomat, Henri de Massue, 1st Marquis de Ruvigny who served as French ambassador to England from 1674 to 1677. Young Henri became a soldier and served in the French army with great distinction. This brought him to the attention of King Louis XIV who chose him to carry out secret negotiations with the English King Charles II in 1678.
Henri succeeded his father as a general of the Huguenots but after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1690 he decided to flee to England, settling in Greenwich. After the death of his brother at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, he offered his services to the English King William III, who appointed him major-general. Although King Louis XIV had allowed the de Ruvigny family to keep their estates in France after they fled to England, he subsequently confiscated them when he heard Henri had joined William III.
Having distinguished himself in 1691 at the Battle of Aughrim in Ireland against the Irish Jacobite army loyal to James II, he became commander-in-chief in Ireland and then Viscount Galway, receiving from William III estates seized from Jacobites. One estate was in Queen’s County where de Massue founded the colony of Portarlington and persuaded Huguenot refugees to settle there.
He proceeded to fight against the French during the Nine Years’ War but was wounded in 1693. He withdrew to Ireland and having been elevated to Earl of Galway he served as Lord Justice of Ireland from 1697 to 1701, when he retired, feeling unsuited to politics.
But by 1704 he had returned to military duty during the War of the Spanish Succession and fought with success until the Battle of Almansa in Portugal in 1707. Here the English, fighting as part of the Habsburg force, were led by a Frenchman, de Massue, but were beaten by an Englishman, the Duke of Berwick, head of the French Bourbon army!
Having suffered a further defeat against the French in 1709, he retired from military service. After a short period of further service as a lord justice in Ireland in 1715, he retired completely, though by then the estates granted to him in Ireland had been restored to their former owners. He was given a pension by the English Parliament and in 1718 was appointed governor of the original French Hospital (La Providence) in Finsbury, London when it was first founded. Henri de Massue finally retired to Rookley, near Southampton where he died unmarried in September 1720.
Sources include: Britannica.com Libraryireland.com hantsfieldclub.org.uk
Alexander McQueen was a British fashion designer and maker of haute couture clothing. He was born in Lewisham, London, to Ronald and Joyce McQueen and was of Huguenot descent on his father’s side.
His ancestors, who were stonemakers, settled in East London in the late eighteenth century. In 1806, one ancestor, also called Alexander, married a woman of Huguenot descent named Sarah Vallas, whose heritage greatly appealed to McQueen.
McQueen knew that he wanted to be a fashion designer from an early age, and served an apprenticeship in Savile Row and attended the Rossetta Studio Workshops. McQueen received his Masters degree in fashion design from Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design in 1992, which kickstarted his career as a fashion designer.
Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754) was a French mathematician who pioneered the development of analytic trigonometry and the theory of probability. He was known for ‘de Moivre's formula’, a formula that links complex numbers and trigonometry.
He first discovered Binet's formula, the expression for Fibonacci numbers linking the nth power of the golden ratio φ to the nth Fibonacci number. He was imprisoned for his faith after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but was released and fled to London. There he became a close friend of Sir Isaac Newton and the astronomer Edmund Halley.
De Moivre was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1697 and later to the Paris and Berlin Academies.
Peter/ Pierre Monlong (1664-1702)
Peter / Pierre Monlong was one of the leading Paris gunmakers and was appointed Arquebusier de la Maison Roi and Gentleman Armourer in Ordinary to William III
Monlong left Paris and emigrated to London in 1684 and settled in Soho, outside the control of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers. He made a pair of finely wrought and highly decorated flintlock pistols inlaid with silver filigree, considered to be some of the best guns ever made in England, now owned by H.M Armouries at the Tower of London. One of his flintlocks is also held in the V & A Museum.
His pistols were some of the mose elaborately decorated ever made inlaid with scrolls, birds, animals and figures, including Diana and her hounds, Apollo driving the chariot of the sun on the trigger guard. The decorative motifs are derived from pattern books published in Paris in 1685 and 1693, which shows that he kept abreast of the latest developments in French taste even after moving to London.
Sources:
Quiet Conquest, the Huguenots 1685 – 1985. Museum of London
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O97426/flintlock-pistol-monlong-pierre/
https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-985.html
Jacques Le Moyne (1533-1588) was a Huguenot cartographer and draughtsman of flowers and natural history who joined Laudonniere’s expedition to Florida in 1564. Le Moyne was the first artist to travel to the New World and documented Florida’s coastline, local flora and fauna, along with the Timucua Indians.
When the Spanish attacked the French settlement of Fort Caroline, Le Moyne was lucky enough to escape, but sadly almost all of his illustrations were destroyed. He sailed back to France and redrew his pictures from memory.
As a Huguenot, Le Moyne had to flee France and settled in England in around 1581 and lived there until his death in 1588. Whilst living in London he was patronised by Sir Walter Raleigh and courtier Mary Sidney to name a few.
In 1584 he published the book ‘La Clef des Champs’ (The Key to the Meadow), a pattern book to serve as inspiration for artists and craftsmen.
Sources:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=117793