may expect to find there. Also that it may be known what registers, &c., are missing, so that steps may be taken to search for and endeavour to find them. With regard to those who may come forward as earnest workers, it is well to state that there are two classes of students, those who simply wish to cull the ripened fruit to make use of in composing genealogies of certain families, and those selfdenying devotees who transcribe and arrange and index registers and other documents, so that their contents may be readily available for all their brethren. It is fervently to be hoped that several of the latter order will come forward with all their energy, so that the Huguenot Society of London may be something more than a mere name, and that it may take its place with honour beside the similar Societies of France and Holland. It will not be out of place to mention here the good work done by six to eight spirited Dutch gentleman of Huguenot blood, who forming themselves into the "Commission des Eglises Wallonnes" of Holland, have during the last six years, at an expense of about £300, had copied on slips and arranged in one vast alphabetical collection, which is kept at Haerlem, the registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials of the Walloon or French Churches of Amsterdam, Arnhem, Bois le Duc, Delft, Dordrecht, Groningen, Haerlem, The Hague, Leyden, Maestricht, Middelburg, Nimwegen, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Voorburg and Zwolle. These congregations are still existing, and the number of entries is very considerable. Besides these are still existing the registers of the following Churches, whose congregations have been dissolved, which have also been copied, viz. :-Aardenburg, Amersfoort, Bergen op Zoom, Briele, Cadzand, Campen, Deventer, Doesburg, Eysden, Flushing, Franeker, Goes, Gorcum, Gouda, Groede, Harderwyk, Heusden, Naarden, Oostburg, Sas van Ghent, Schiedam, Tholen, Vaals, Veere, Vianen, Zierickzee, and Zutphen; added to these are the Churches beyond the Meuse, viz.: Bleigny, Dalem, Hadimont, and Olve; the Churches of the Barriere, viz.: Menin, Namur, Tournai, Ypres, and also the Churches of Wesels, Cleeves, and Emmerich. Besides the registers of baptism, &c., the member-books of the Churches, the lists, 1668-1760, of refugee officers who served the Republic of the United Netherlands, of French ladies, pensioned by the States, and of those refugees who made requests of various kinds, have been transcribed. Beyond all this laborious work, a journal issued yearly, giving Articles on the history of the various French Churches in Holland, and of their members. If a small Society of earnest workers can effect this great work of inestimable value to Huguenot history, what ought not the Huguenot Society of London to be able to do in the way of arranging, in a form convenient for reference, the registers that exist in this country, most of them collected together in but few repositories? The registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, or burials, are the very backbone of genealogical research, the persons recorded by the entries requiring only to be identified and reduced to order by the information provided by the wills to be found at the various probate registries, the Acts of Parliament giving naturalization, kept in the library of the House of Lords, and the returns of the strangers made by the mayors of the various towns on the orders of the Privy Council, from the year 1567, and at intervals afterwards. It must be remembered that the word "Huguenot" is an elastic word, and one, the origin of which is not known with any precision, and is used for the earlier and later French Protestant refugees. There were two great occasions for their migration to this country, Holland Germany and Switzerland, viz., the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 24th August, 1572, when twelve to thirteen thousand persons perished in Paris alone, and in the whole of France from seventy to one hundred thousand; secondly, the, Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 22nd October, 1685, which was the death-knell of the Huguenots in France, when upwards of three hundred thousand refugees fled from that country to save their lives, and to be able to worship their Creator according to the tenets of the Reformed Religion. Very many of the Walloon or French-speaking refugees from the Netherlands, bore names not to be distinguished from their French neighbours; many of these became members of the earlier French Churches established in this country, and were united by marriage with their French brethren, while others joined the Dutch Churches. It must, therefore, be borne in mind, that no research is complete without consulting the registers of both sets of Churches. The remembrance of the first migration of Huguenots to this country in the second half of the 16th century exercised a great influence on the determination of the oppressed Protestants in France to come in such numbers to England. They felt that they would be well received, and that they would find numerous congregations, worshipping in their own tongue and in their own form of religion, ready to welcome them with open arms. In the Channel Islands the earlier refugees brought to bear more influence than is generally supposed on the formation of the ecclesiastical system there, and it was undoubtedly owing to the form of worship, analogous to their own, that so many went there in 1685. In Jersey more entries relative to refugee families are to be found in the registers of the eastern parishes, but most of all in St. Heliers. At the end of one of the books of St. Clements is a list of the refugees who partook of the Sacrament there. Much information is also to be got from the court rolls of the period. When a State fund was started to relieve the refugees, the Poignard family furnished the relieving officers in Jersey, and it is believed their cheque-book still exists. It may be well to mention that the often quoted list of early refugees in the Chroniques de Jersey is very incorrectly printed many of the names are wrong, e.g., among the ministers' names Mons. Henice is mentioned: it should be Henrie. Our fellow member Mr. H. Marett Godfray is to be thanked for this information concerning Jersey. It will be well to consider what registers and records were kept by these foreign churches, for many are apt to think that those of baptisms, marriages, and burials exhaust the sources of this nature. From the commencement of these congregations, the ministers, elders, and deacons kept careful minute-books of all matters which came before them in the consistory, which were termed "livres des Actes." In these books were often entered the permissions to marry, granted to those couples who declared their intentions to do so. Private arrangements of all kinds were settled by them and the "Hommes Politiques," as they were termed, who were appointed by the mayors and corporations of the towns; these acted as notaries, drawing up contracts of marriages, wills and deeds, for the members of the congregations. Registers were also kept, in all cases, of the members of the various churches, giving the towns where the new comers were born, and the attestations from other churches which they brought with them. In these books were frequently entered the residences of the members, or the names and addresses of those with whom they were living; also the names of those who vouched for their respectability, &c., when born in the town where was the church they were about to join. Lists were also kept, generally hung up in the churches, of the names of all past ministers, elders and deacons. Next to the registers of baptisms, &c., which will be referred to in detail later on, and the wills, the member-books are the most important sources of information of the personal history of the refugees and their children; the young people's names being all found when they came to the age to be admitted to the sacrament, generally vouched for by their parents or uncles and aunts. As far as it has been possible to ascertain, the member-books of the Threadneedle Street church, prior to the end of the last century, are missing from the St. Martin's-le-Grand archives: it should be one of the objects of this Society to endeavour to find these most important volumes, which in like churches are always most carefully preserved. The congregations of those churches which were dissolved, unquestionably must have handed over these series of registers to the consistories of the churches they joined; and as the London churches for the most part gravitated eventually to the Threadneedle Street church, these books and registers should be now found in the archives of the French Church at St. Martin's-le-Grand, and according to the scheme of the Charity Commissioners, confirmed by the Court of Chancery, are legally, together with the invested funds, in the care of the Trustees of that church, though at present it appears to be impossible to gain access to them. It has therefore been necessary to draw largely on the information given by the late Mr. John Southerden Burn, who must have consulted these registers and books when compiling his able and valuable history of the foreign refugees, published in 1846. In a note, page 31, it is stated that the "Actes" of the Vestry of the Threadneedle Street church are contained in several thick volumes, commencing 2 Jan. 1588. Some copies will probably be found at St. Martin's-le-Grand of the returns made by the French Churches to the Mayors of the various towns, which the Privy Council from 1567 required to be sent in of the strangers at regular intervals; these should also be found in the archives of the Bishop of London and at the Lambeth Palace Library, where is a thick folio volume, 66-A5, 29, with lists of names for 1703, 1705-1709, of the recipients of relief: those of the three first years being the most important, as giving the places in France whence the refugees came; also printed broadsides concerning the French refugees. In In the British Museum, 491, K 5, is a printed list (1707) of the French refugees in receipt of the Royal Bounty in 1705. the Landsdown MS., vol. X. No. 62, is a long list of the strangers of 1568. In the Public Record Office are many of the numerous returns made to the Privy Council, the strangers being separated according to their churches. The following are some of the references to these lists in the Domestic Series of the State Papers. Particulars are often given in these of the names of the wives, the names or numbers of the children, the trades followed, and occasionally the length of time the strangers had been in the country, and the country where they were born. State Papers, D.S. Vol. lxxviii. Elizabeth, 1571. 8. List of strangers in Harwich. 18. List of strangers in Dover. 29. List of strangers in Sandwich. Idem. Vol. lxxxii. 1571. The returns in this volume give the names of all the strangers in London, distinguishing their nations, the wards and parishes in which they dwelt, their trades and occupations, time of their abode in the realm and the churches or congregations they frequented, amounting in the whole to 4,631 persons. Vol. lxxxiv. 1571. 1. List of strangers dwelling in St. Catherine's Shoreditch, Finsbury, Great St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and other hamlets near London, in the county of Middlesex, taken 20th December. 14 Queen Elizabeth. 2. Lists returned by the Lord Mayor of strangers abiding in London, December, 1571. Similar to but not identical with vol. lxxxii. Subsidies. 146-280, 27 Elizabeth. Names of strangers of France taxed in London and adjoining. 146-301, 30-31 Elizabeth. Five certificates relating to aliens residing in London. 146-460, 3 Jac. I. Eight certificates witnessing the names of aliens residing in London, &c. State Papers, D.S. Vol. cxxviii. 1622. 46. List of twenty-seven French and Dutch residents, utlers, in and near London. Vol. cxxviii. 1622. 60. List of joiners, aliens. cxxxi. 1622. 100. Strangers of the Walloon Church of Canterbury, with a note of their trades. |