Famous Huguenots - The Huguenots of Spitalfields

NOUAILLE, Peter

OLIVIER, Isaac

OLIVIER, Laurence

PALISSY, Bernard

PAPIN, Denis

Denis Papin (1647-1712) was an inventor, physicist and mathematician,

Papin was born in Blois and graduated with a medical degree in 1669, originally intending to become a doctor. However he was much more interested in mathematics and mechanics than he was in medicine. He became assistant to Christiaan Huygens, one of the leading scientists of his day.

Papin came to England in 1675 to work with the English physicist Robert Boyle. In 1679 Papin invented his ‘steam digester’ (pressure cooker), a vessel with a tightly fitting lid that compresses the steam, generating a high pressure and raising the boiling point of the water considerably. He also invented a safety valve to prevent the vessel exploding. Papin observed that the enclosed steam in his cooker tended to raise the lid, which led him to conceive of the use of steam to drive a piston in a cylinder, the basic design for early steam engines. His design led to the development of the steam engine, a major contribution to the Industrial Revolution.

^{Denis Papin 1647-1712 - inventor, physicist and mathematician}

The following year, Papin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society where he was appointed as temporary curator of experiments.

He worked on other inventions including the construction of a submarine, an air gun and a grenade launcher. He also experimented with preserving food with chemicals and using a vacuum. In 1709 he built a man-powered paddle-wheel boat that demonstrated the practicability of using apaddle wheel in place of oars on steam-driven ships.

Papin received little in the way of honours in his lifetime, mainly because the importance of his work was not understood until 100 years after his death.

In 2016, however, a record came to light in the London Metropolitan Archives which showed that a 'Denys Papin' had been buried in the cemetery of St Bride's Church in Fleet Street in 1713. There is a campaign to raise funds to erect a memorial plaque in St Bride's Church to commemorate him.

Sources:
The Quiet Conquest https://www.britannica.com/biography/Denis-Papin http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Papin.htmlArticle by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertsonhttps://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/papin-memorial-london

PELLETIER, Jean

PERTWEE, Jon

PLANCHE, Andrew

PORTAL, Henri

Henri de Portal (1690 –1747) was a papermaker who made the first watermarked paper for the Bank of England notes. The Portal family came from Poitiers and took refuge in Southampton

Henri and his brother Guillaume escaped from France with their father Jean Francois. It is said that the children’s old nurse hid the children in an oven so that the soldiers would not find them and that they were hidden in wine casks and were smuggled on a small fishing boat to Southampton.

Before the Huguenots arrived, most white paper had to be imported from the Continent but in 1686 James II granted a patent to the White Paper Makers Company which consisted of 15 men, 9 of whom were Huguenots. One of their papermills was at South Stonham, which was where the young Henri Portal found work. He then took the lease of Bere Mill in 1710 which was so successful that he leased another mill at Laverstoke to expand the business. Portal was friendly with William Heathcote whose uncle was Governor of the Bank of England. The Bank needed protective paper for their banknotes and he agreed to manufacture a better kind of paper than they had been using previously. It was stronger with better definition and clarity, which greatly reduced the risk of forgery, and in 1727 Henry Portal obtained the privilege of making the notes of the Bank of England. His company also invented the metallic thread incorporated into the paper and the same company has been providing paper for English banknotes right up to the current day, although the firm was sold to De La Rue in 1995. For nearly 200 years the business was handed down from father to son, almost unique in the history of English manufacturers.

Quiet Conquest, the Huguenots 1685 – 1985. Museum of London

www.hampshiremills.org/Snippets%20Henri%20Portal.htm

Highways and Byways in Hampshire: D H Moutray Read

Hampshire and the Company of White paper makers: J. H. Thoma, B.A.

PRATT, Anne

PRELLEUR, Peter

Rockerfeller, JD

J D Rockefeller Snr

John Davison Rockefeller Snr was an American business magnate and philanthropist. It is widely considered that he was the wealthiest American of all time, and was once the richest person in modern history (Amazon and Facebook probably outstrip him now!).

In the 1850s a new industry emerged when refiners discovered that refined petroleum (which up until that point had been bought chiefly for its supposed medicinal properties) made an ideal fuel for lamps. Rockefeller foresaw the potential of refining Pennsylvania crude oil, which would revolutionise the way people lit their homes, fuelled their vehicles and powered their industries.

^{Standard Oil Company Building, Lower Manhattan, New York 1956}

He founded, with 2 others, the Standard Oil Company in 1863 in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1899 Standard Oil controlled 90 to 95 percent of the oil refined in the United States. By 1911 this was considered a monopoly and the company was broken up, later becoming Esso, BP, Mobil and Amoco amongst others.

John Davison Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839 in Richford, New York and died on May 23rd 1937 in Florida. He was the second of six children of William Avery Rockefeller and Eliza Davison. William (1810- 1906) was the kind of man they called a scoundrel in the 1800s. He was a peddler, a quack, an itinerant and generally a ne'er-do-well who had several wives and many children. He spent much time away (some with a bigamous second wife) so JD had to help his mother look after the first family until aged 16, he found a job which set him on the road to success. Surprisingly William “snake oil pedlar” Rockefeller’s own father - Godfrey Lewis Rockefeller (1783 – 1857), was an American farmer and businessman who was an early settler in Richford, New York. His parents were William and Christina Rockefeller who were third cousins; William's grandfather was Johann Peter Rockefeller, a miller who migrated from Rhineland, Germany to Philadelphia where he was a plantation owner and landholder in Somerville and Amwell, New Jersey. Christina's grandfather was Johann Peter's cousin, Diell Rockefeller, who immigrated to Germantown, Columbia, New York. In 1806 Godfrey married former schoolteacher, Lucy Avery (1786 – 1867) despite opposition from her parents. This was because the Rockefellers were German Evangelicals and Lucy Avery’s ancestors were Puritans who had emigrated from Devon to Salem, Massachusetts, in about 1630.

From the 12th C the name Avery can be found many times in the south west of England and in St Stephens Church in Saltash, Devon there is a plaque placed in memory of the Avery family and their long-standing association with the area.

^{John D Rockefeller Snr and John D Rockefeller Jn 1915}

In the 17th C many Averys emmigrated to the New World and four branches developed – the Groton branch, the Dedham line, the Portsmouth line and the Ipswitch branch. Lucy’s parents descended from the Groton branch in Conneticut. Samuel Avery (1731-1806) her grandfather, married a Sybil Noyes who was descended from William Bradford who came over on the Mayflower. William Bradford was born in the village of Austerfield, Doncaster in 1589. Despite being a long-standing member of the Separatist group and playing a huge part in their plans to sail across the Atlantic, Bradford was yet to assume any leadership role for the Pilgrims - but that was to change very quickly. Against all the odds, he overcame the terrible sickness that swept through the Mayflower during the first winter and accounted for more than half the lives of the people on board. Then, while grieving the sudden death of his wife - who passed away while the ship was anchored off Cape Cod - Bradford was chosen to lead the group after the first Governor John Carver collapsed and died less than six months after the Mayflower landed. He served as Governor for many years, gaining re-election time and time again, and played a huge part in gaining the trust of the Native Americans - which led to what became the first Thanksgiving in 1623.

So, returning to J D Rockefeller Sn. Does he descend from Huguenots?. The answer is, sadly, apparently not! His paternal side were German evangelical protestants and his maternal side descended from English Puritans.

ROGET, Peter Mark

ROMILLY, Samuel

Rondeau, Jean

John ‘The Sexton’ Rondeau 1706-1790, 3 Wood Street/4 Wilkes Street

Jean Rondeau the elder was a serge weaver born in 1666 in Paris into a family that had been involved in weaving for three generations. Escaping persecution for his Protestant faith, he came to London in the mid-17th century and settled in Brick Lane, fathering twelve children. The Rondeau’s were one of the oldest families in Spitalfields. Weaving had taken place in this area outside the City walls since 1640. However, the main influx of Huguenot silk weavers came later, in the 1680’s, when English masters welcomed cheap, skilled labourers during the dominance of French fashion, which depended on pattern rather than cut. Jean Rondeau went on to great success as a weaver in London and in 1723 he built a fine house, number 3 Wood Street (4 Wilkes St). John could not write and signed his will with an X before he died in 1740.

Jean’s son John Rondeau the younger, born 1706 in Brick Lane became a master silk weaver and in 1741 he commissioned textile designs from Anna Maria Garthwaite, the famous designer of Spitalfields silks.

As a measure of John the younger’s status at this time, in 1745 he sent 47 of his employees to join the fight against Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In 1749 he married Margaret Roberts, a widow, in a clandestine marriage at or near the Fleet Prison. "Clandestine" marriages were those that had an element of secrecy to them: perhaps they took place away from a home parish (John’s parish was Christ Church Spitalfields), and without either Banns or marriage licence. They went on to have several children.

However, the weaving industry changed in the mid18th century, partly because the most successful masters tended to leave for the land or liberal professions, being replaced by humbler journeymen, usually Englishmen. By 1788 there was said to be not one silk master or manufacturer resident in Bethnal Green, the remaining journeymen weavers working in their own homes.

It is thought that John the younger went from living in the largest house in Wilkes Street to being flung into debtors’ prison. He was forced to seek work as a Sexton at Christ Church in 1761 until his death in 1790, when he was buried in the crypt in a lead coffin labelled “John Rondeau, Sexton of this Parish,”

His remains were exhumed at the end of the twentieth century and transported to the Natural History Museum for study. His descendants are still connected with Christ Church to this day.

No 3 Wood Street ( 4 Wilkes St) later became a Protestant Dissenting School Following the dispersal of the Huguenots, waves of other immigrants each added their influence to Spitalfields. Notably Irish, Jewish and, most recently, Bengali.

ROUMIEU, Robert Lewis

SAWALHA, Julia

SHERIDAN LE FANU, Joseph

TANQUERAY, Anne

Anne Tanqueray (1691-1733)

Subordinate goldsmith to George 1st and probably the best woman silversmith of all time.[1] As the eldest daughter of David Willaume, a prominent Huguenot silversmith/goldsmith, who had come to London from Metz, north east France in 1685, it was probably not surprising that she became involved in the craft of her father. On 19 October 1690 David had married Marie Mettayer at the French Protestant chapel in Brown’s Lane, Spitalfields where Marie’s father - Samuel Mettayer was the Minister. Ann was their first child, born a year later on the 19^th July 1691. Three more children arrived, but sadly two died in infancy. The other surviving child David II also became a silversmith. The Manor of Tingrith in Bedfordshire was either bought by David II as a family home, or David Willaume Senior for retirement purposes.

Ann must have watched her father working on a regular basis and it would seem that she, too, trained in the art of silversmithing although not undertaking a formal apprenticeship as such. Incidentally, becoming a journeyman silversmith required young women of better than average physique, for the tools whereby silver was formed into such things as tankards, dishes, trays, kettles, teapots, and the like were neither light nor easily handled. There was the heavy sledge hammer weighing eight or more pounds with which the silver was beaten on the specially shaped anvils many times in the course of making a piece. Perhaps Ann was not of such muscular form as she seems to have concentrated on small items!

On the 16^th September 1708 David Willaume, her father, formally contracted with David Tanqueray (originally from St Lo in Normandy) to ‘teach him the skills of goldsmithing’ as an indentured apprentice for seven years. Nine years later Ann and ‘the apprentice’ were married in 1717 although he did not finish his apprenticeship until 1722. There is some doubt about this last date as he appears to have his own apprentice by May 1718 when he calls himself a citizen and goldsmith.[2] David and Anne had two surviving sons, but also 2 daughters (Ann b1718, MaryAnn b1723).

Her husband established his own workshop probably in Green Street, Leicester Fields and later in Pall Mall[3], entering his first mark as a largeworker in 1713 and it is likely that Ann created some of the items bearing her husband's mark. His second mark (Stirling) was in 1720.

On David’s death (which, strangely, does not seem to be recorded) and the fact that he was still paying for his apprentice in July 1723 (although this may have been Anne using his name), he appears to have died at the end of 1723. Anne, being resourceful and obviously skilled in her own right and despite being a working mother of young children, took over his business and entered two marks of her own (Sterling and New Standard) in the Goldsmiths Touch Register.

To be a woman silversmith in the 17/18^th centuries was apparently not that unusual. There were, between 1697 and the Victorian era, a total of 63 women silversmiths in London, each possessed of her own registered touch mark.[4] Ann Tanqueray would have had the opportunity to produce her own work (mostly small silver items) and oversee skilled journeymen making larger pieces. Tanqueray's workshop was noted for its high level of excellence and in 1729 -1732 it became Subordinate Goldsmith to King George 1^st.

Ann Tanqueray died on 21 November 1733, aged just 42 and was buried 4 days later in Tingrith Church, near the family home in Bedfordshire. In her will she left her tools to her two sons (David and Thomas)[5] who were not yet 21 years old.

Examples of Ann Tanqueray’s work can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum Wales, and at Welbeck Abbey.

[1] Waxantiques description: www.waxantiques.com

[2] Ancestry.co.uk Apprentice records

[3] British Museum Collectors online for David Tanqueray

[4] Collector’s Weekly article Thomas Hamilton Ormsbee — April 3rd, 2009This article originally appeared in American Collector magazine, a publication which ran from 1933-1948 and served antique collectors and dealers.

[5] Ancestry.co.uk wills

TILLARD, James

WASHINGTON, George

WILLAUME, David

David Willaume 1 - goldsmith/metalworker; banker/financier

Born on 7 June 1658 on the Pont des Morts (the Bridge of the Dead), in Metz France, he was the third of six children of Adam Willaume and Anne Phillipe who had married in 1651. This somewhat unglamorous sounding birthplace – The Bridge of the Dead – allegedly owes its name to the origin of its construction. The bridge was built in 1282 by the hospital of St. Nicholas who took and sold the best piece of clothes of every dead person in Metz in order to pay for it. The Willaume family presumably lived nearby. Today there still exits a Street of the Bridge of the Dead in Metz.

David, having been born into a family of goldsmiths was probably apprenticed to his father and became a Master Goldsmith on 18 April 1680. There is no record of him having established a hallmark in Metz and his name is not in the list of goldsmiths in Metz for 1684. At this point in time, three events contributed to David’s decision to leave Metz, a Protestant stronghold. Firstly, punitive taxes had been introduced on the sale of plate, the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 and the manufacture of gold items and large pieces of silver were prohibited. It is not certain when he arrived in London, but he was endenizened on the 16 December 1687. He married Maria Mettayer in the French Chapel in Spitalfields on the 9th October 1688 and they had four children of whom only two survived – Anne and David II.

David Willaume I was a successful man setting up business at the sign of Windsor Castle near Charing Cross and selling jewellery as well. His first registered hallmark was not until November 1698, but with a different address – the sign of the Golden Ball, Pall Mall. By 1714 he had moved again to premises on the west side of St James Street, Mayfair where the business remained with the same sign until 1746 (although he retired in 1728 when his son David Willaume II succeeded him). He enjoyed the patronage of the wealthiest clients in England probably attracted by his grand designs in the French fashion and his use of heavy metal and fine casting techniques.

Some goldsmiths at this time, including David Willaume I, also started a form of banking and the phrase ‘running-cashes’ came into place. They were in effect providing banking facilities prior to the establishment of banks at the beginning of the 18th century. These merchants had enough assets to issue cash loans, bills of exchange (similar to cheques) and to exchange cash for plate taken from customers who wished to liquidate or borrow money against their plate.

During his 30 years of working life, David trained 17 apprentices, 12 of whom went on to have their own marks, including David Tanqueray who married his master’s daughter Anne Willaume.

David Willaume I does not seem to have been hugely fond of his son-in-law David Tanqueray as in his will drawn up in 1720, he leaves only £20 to David, £5 to the poor of the parish of St Martin’s in the Fields (where he was living), his goods and chattels and remaining estate to his beloved son David II, and £80 to his daughter Ann with the clear instruction that the money be given directly to her for her own use and implying that Tanqueray should not get his hands on it!

David Willaume’s precise date of death is not certain, but his will was proved on 26 January 1741 and he was buried at St Nicholas Church, in Tingrith, Bedfordshire on the 27 April 1741, some 2 months after probate was granted. Perhaps the weather had been bad that year and travelling to Bedfordshire with a coffin in mid-winter may have been difficult.

David Willaume’s work can be seen in the V&A and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

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