Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 9 - Section VI

by David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

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VI. Lefroy (formerly Loffroy).^[1]

In my Chapter I. I have sketched the antecedents of the Leffroy family — “a Cambresian family that preferred religion and liberty to their country and property,” during the series of persecutions usually associated with the name of “Duke Alva.” Cambresian is an adjective coined from the name of the city of Cambray, from which Antoine Loffroy fled in 1587, being then (it is supposed) in his thirty-eighth year. This refugee gentleman brought with him both money and jewels, which he seems to have employed partly in buying house property in Canterbury, and partly in equipping silk (or silk-dyeing) warerooms in that city, which was his adopted residence. He died before February 1612. The date of his marriage was probably 1585, and his son Esaie was a refugee child. The baptisms of other children are registered in the French Church of Canterbury — David, his second son, 29th November 1590; Pierre, third son, ist November 1592; two daughters, each named Marie, who died in infancy (a Loffroy, supposed to be a fourth son of the refugee, appears in 1627, namely, Thomas Loffroy, who had a wife, Anne, and an infant, Esaie, in 1626, and an infant, Jeanne, in 1628, which Esaie died in 1646, and which Jeanne was married in 1656 to Pierre Le Due). The above-named David Loffroy married, on 6th December 1616, Marie, daughter of Jan du Beuf; the birth of their daughter, Anne, is registered at Canterbury, but thereafter they are not heard of, and it is said that they emigrated to Rotterdam. Pierre, the next brother, disappears from notice after his baptism. It is therefore from the eldest, Esaie, that our Lefroys descend.

Esaie Loffroy, after the death of his father, married, on 24th February 1612 (n.s.), Marie, daughter of the late Pierre Le Sage, a refugee. The Government List of Strangers in Canterbury, made in the year 1621, places him, not among “Englishborne” [i.e., English-born], but among “Strangers” — proving that he was born in Cambray. “Esaje Loffroy” is twelfth on the list headed by his brother’s father-inlaw, Jean du Beuf. His wife died on 21st March 1642, having had five daughters and two sons. The eldest daughter, Anne, became, in 1634, the wife of Jaques Caron, and her son, Jaques Caron, was married at Threadneedle Street, London, in 1666. Of the sons, Samuel, born in 1616, did not long survive. The other son, Jaques Loffroy, was therefore the only male heir. He is the first head of the family, the dates both of whose baptism and of whose death we have; he was baptized on 17th July 1625, and died on 12th November 1702, aged seventy-seven. He married Miss Margaret Pigden,and they had three sons, Samuel, Israel, and John; the daughters (we must choose one account out of two conflicting ones) were Elizabeth, wife of Samuel Longuet,^[2] Ester, Mrs Agar, and Sara, who was married thrice, and was successively Mrs Hanson, Mrs Woodman, and Mrs King. During this period the spelling of the family surname began to fluctuate between Loffroy and Lefroy. The father of the sons and daughters named above becomes James Lefroy in his will, dated in 1702. As this is the oldest will, it deserves to be copied:—

“In the name of God, Amen. I, James Lefroy, of the City of Canterbury, silk-dyer, being at present ill and weak in body, but of good understanding and memory, thanks be to God, and considering the uncertainty of this mortal life, do make this my last Will and Testament in manner following. First, I recommend my Soul to God who gave it, and my Body I leave to the earth to be decently buried. Item, I give unto my grand-daughter, Elizabeth Oldfield, and heirs, all that messuage and tenement, backside, and garden with the appurtenaces, situate, lying, and being in the Parish of the Blessed Mary of Northgate, in the said city, known by the sign of the King’s Head, and now in the occupation of Anne Landman, widow, or of her assignes. Item, I give and devise unto my said grand-daughter, Elizabeth Oldfield, and heirs, all that messuage and tenement, with the appurtenances, situate, and being in a certain lane called Turnagain Lane, in the Parish of All Saints, in the said city, and now in the occupation of Saffory Day and a Frenchman. Item, I give unto son, Israel Lefroy, and his assignes during his life, my piece of land called the Tenterfield, lying in a place called the Friers in the said city, and after his decease, I give the said piece of land, called the Tenterfield, unto my grandson, Thomas Lefroy, and his heirs. Item, I give unto Elizabeth Vanson, who now liveth with me, the sume of ten pounds and a feather-bed. Item, I give to my son, Israel Lefroy, and his assigns, during his life, the use of my presses, coppers, flatts, and all other materials belonging to my dying-house, and after his decease, I give all the said presses, coppers, flatts, and all other materials belonging to my dying-house, unto my grandson, Thomas Lefroy, and the residue of my goods, chattels, and personal estate, I give unto son, Israel Lefroy. And I do make my said son, Israel Lefroy, sole Executor of this my last Will and Testament, and I give to my daughters, Longuet, Agar, and Woodman, and my grand-daughter, Elizabeth Oldfield, and her husband, and to my grandson, Thomas Lefroy, and his wife, to every one of them five pounds a-piece for mourning, and I give ten pounds to the poor of the Walloon congregation in Canterbury. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seale, this twenty-sixth day of September, in the first year of the reigne of our Sovereign Lady Ann, now Queen of England, &c, and in the year of our Lord 1702.”

Israel, the executor, was his only surviving son; he had married, first, in 1674, Marie Van den Hayden, and, secondly, in 1688, Marie de Hane, and by them was the founder of two families, but the second became extinct in 1764. The senior family consisted of Mrs Oldfield and one surviving son, Thomas, baptized on 16th January 1681 (n.s.), the future chief. As to the venerable Israel Loffroy, he was known, to the last, among the refugee community by his true name and surname. There had been some ecclesiastical division among them, arising from sorry liturgical disputes; a party, to which he belonged, removed from the famous crypt of the old cathedral to a temporary meeting-house, in order there to enjoy the Anglican liturgy in French. The secession soon collapsed, and I mention it only because we cannot find the exact day of his death, and because a minute of the Malthouse French Church, Canterbury, states that the minister, elders, and majority of heads of families met to elect an elder in the room of Israel Loffroy, deceased — which minute is dated 13th June 1713. The silk-dyeing business was left to Israel Loffroy’s widow, and passed to the junior family. Thomas had married in August 1802, when he was twenty-one years of age, a lady of good position in the county of Kent, and seems, while he retained some of the property in Canterbury, to have been very cordially received, and to have spent much of his time in the parish of Petham. His wife’s maiden name was Phoebe Thompson. In the year of their marriage a blazon of the arms of Lefroy impaling Thompson was executed, and it is still preserved at Itchell; it is a shield, 3½ by 3 inches, and is painted in oil on canvas. They had nine children, of whom only two survived, Lucy (born 1715), unmarried, and Anthony (born 1705), the founder of the modern Lefroys. Mr Thomas Lefroy died on 3d November 1723, in his forty-third year, and was buried at Petham Parish Church. His widow lived till 31st March 1761, when she died, aged eighty-one. In her will she calls herself “Phoebe Leffroy, of the parish of All Saints in the City of Canterbury, Widow,” but desires to be buried in the parish church of Petham, “near to the grave of my dear husband, Thomas Leffroy.” Her daughter, Lucy, was her heiress, and represented the family at Canterbury until her death in 1784. A compendious history of Thomas and Mrs. Lefroy, and their two children who attained maturity, was executed in monumental style in the parish church of Petham, thus:—

In hope of a joyful Resurrection. Here lyeth buried the body of Thomas Lefroy, of the parish of All Saints’, in the City of Canterbury, of the Family of Lefroys, of Cambray, in France. He married Phoebe, 2d daughter of Thomas, 2d son of Henry Thompson, of Kentfield, in this parish, Esq., by Phoebe, daughter of Anthony Hammond, Esq., of St. Albans, in the parish of Nonnington,

Who had four sons and five daughters,
only two of whom survived, Anthony and Lucy.
Also, Phoebe, his wife, lies under this Stone, who died March 31, 1761,
aged 81 years.

In Memory of Lucy Lefroy, daughter of Thomas and Phoebe Lefroy, who died unmarried 17th July 1784, aged 69, and in filial, fraternal, nepotal affection could not be surpassed, nor in the firm belief of those Divine Promises that support the real Christian in the moments of dissolution.

Anthony Lefroy, her brother, died in Tuscany,
14th July 1779, aged 75.

Of the last-named Anthony Lefroy, I give a separate memoir in my Chapter of Literati; and I shall come to the family of Elizabeth Langlois, his wife, in my next volume. It will be sufficient to say here that he resided at Leghorn, and was married in the year 1738. His one surviving daughter, born in May 1740, Phoebe Elizabeth, was married in 1770 to an Italian Count, II Signor Conte Carlo de Medico Staffetti, and died in 1777, leaving children. Of Mr. Lefroy’s three sons, the youngest, John Benjamin, died in infancy; but the first founded an Irish family and the second founded an English family.

(1.) The Irish Lefroys. Their modern chief was Lieut-Colonel Anthony Peter Lefroy. He was born at Leghorn in 1742, and was sent to England in 1752 along with his brother, for education. It was his choice of a profession that eventually destined him to be the founder of an Irish family. His name was put down for a commission in the army, and on 11th January 1763 he became an ensign in the 33d Foot. The regiment was quartered in Ireland; thither he went, and there he remained. Regiments once quartered in Ireland during last century were usually allowed to stay there. There our hero served, and received his several steps of promotion during twenty-eight years, and he lived for other twenty-eight years as a retired Lieut-Colonel in his house at Limerick. It was on 25th June 1785 that he obtained his Lieut.-Colonelcy and the command of the 9th Light Dragoons (that regiment, in 1785, had been in Ireland for sixty-seven years, and it remained for sixteen years thereafter). Lieut-Colonel Lefroy resigned his commission on 30th July 1791 . He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy (M.R.I. A.). He died at Limerick on 8th September 1819, aged seventy-seven. His children (besides five daughters) were:—

1. The Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland, Right Hon. Thomas Lefroy, born 1776, died 1869. His decision to study for the Irish bar, and his success in life, strengthened the claim of his family to be called Irish.
2. Captain Anthony Thomas Lefroy, 65th Regiment, born 1777, died 1857.
3. Captain Benjamin Lefroy, Royal Artillery, born 1783, died 1869. Some of his descendants went to Upper Canada and to Melbourne.
4. Christopher Lefroy, R.N., born 1784, midshipman on board H.M.S. San Fiorenzo; killed in action, 13th February 1805.
5. John Lefroy, died in infancy.
6. Rev. Henry Lefroy, M.A., born 1789, vicar of Santry, near Dublin, and Rural Dean. Some of his descendants settled in Western Australia.

The Lord Chief-Justice (of whom I shall give a memoir in another chapter) was, as a landed proprietor, Lefroy of Carrig-glas, in the County of Longford. He married, in 1799, Mary, only daughter and heir of Jeffry Paul, Esq., of Silver Spring, County Wexford. His children are:—

1. Anthony Lefroy, of Carrig-glas, LL.D., born 1800, M.P. for County Longford from 1830 to 1837 and from 1841 to 1847, and for Dublin University from 1858 to 1870; he married in 1824, Hon. Jane King (who died 1st December 1868), daughter of Viscount Lorton and grand-daughter of Robert, second Earl of Kingston. They had two daughters, Frances, who was married on 22d March 1849 to Colonel David Carrick Buchanan of Drumpellier, and Mary Louise, who was married in June 1852 to Lieut.-Colonel Hon. William Leopold Porsenna Talbot (he died 12th August 1881), youngest son of the third Lord Talbot de Malahide. Mr. Lefroy well upholds the politics and religion of his family, as is illustrated by his being a member of the Carlton Club and National Club, London, of the University Club of Dublin, and the Kildare Street and Sackville Street Clubs in that city.
2. Thomas Paul Lefroy,^[3] born in Dublin in 1807, and baptized in St. Anne’s Church, Dawson Street, on 27th January. He is M.A. of Trinity College. He married, on 1st July 1835, Hon. Elizabeth Jane Sarah Anne Massy, youngest daughter of the third Lord Massy (she died 30th July 1874). Mr. Lefroy was a Queen’s Counsel in Ireland, and is now County Judge of Down; he is his father’s biographer. His eldest son is Thomas Langlois Lefroy.
3. Very Rev. Jeffry Lefroy, M.A., born in 1809, Dean of Dromore. (see Chapter XII.)
4. George Thompson Lefroy was born in Dublin in 1811, baptized privately on June 11, and publicly on August 30. He was treasurer of the Irish Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and after the Disestablishment he retired on a pension and took up his abode in France.
5. Benjamin Lefroy, born in Dublin 25th March 1815, died young.

(2.) The English Lefroys. This line in its senior representatives has not been migratory, though through varying nomenclature it appears at an earlier date as Lefroy of Ewshott House, and at a later as Lefroy of Itchell Manor. Ecclesiastically, it was always similarly localized. Its founder was the second son of Mr. Anthony Lefroy, of Leghorn, the Rev. Isaac Peter George Lefroy. He was born at Leghorn on 12th November 1745, and came to England for his education in March 1752. He had among his luggage two little suits of clothes, “one of scarlet cloth with a belt and a sword, the other of purple camlet turned up with red.” Along with his elder brother he used to spend his school holidays at Canterbury. His college education was at Christ Church, Oxford. After taking his degree of B.A , he was elected a Fellow of All Souls’ College in the same University, on the plea that he was “founder’s kin” (the founder was Archbishop Chichele, of Canterbury, who died in 1443). The college, in one or more cases of old date, had acknowledged the descent, or kinship, of Right Hon. Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls, who died in 1638. So that the Lefroy descent may be stated thus:—

$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	Anne Digges (who died 1664), was	married to	Anthony Hammond,	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$
	Phoebe Hammond (who died 1713)	⁠„⁠	Thomas Thompson,
	Phoebe Thompson	⁠„⁠	Thomas Lefroy,
	the last couple being the grand-parents of Isaac Peter George Lefroy.

In 1777 the dignified Fellow became Rector of Compton in Surrey; in 1778, Chaplain to Amelia, Baroness Conyers. In December of 1778 he removed from his Fellowship into the state of matrimony, his wife being Anne, daughter of Edward Brydges, Esq., of Wootton, Kent, and sister of the accomplished Sir Egerton Brydges. About the same time he became Rector of Ash, and his family may thenceforth be regarded as a Hampshire family. In 1784 he succeeded to the property of his maiden aunt, Lucy, at Canterbury. After a quarter of a century of married life, Mrs. Lefroy died in December 1804, having fallen from her horse, and surviving only twelve hours in a state of insensibility. A pathetic and glowing eulogium upon her appeared at the time in the Gentleman’s Magazine. Mrs. Lefroy’s sister, Deborah Jemima Maxwell née Brydges (wife of Henry Maxwell, Esq., of Ewshott House, Hants), had died in a similarly dreadful manner on 31st March 1789, being accidentally burnt to death. Mr. Lefroy survived his wife only till 15th January 1806, when he died in his sixty-first year. Mr. Maxwell died on 22d July 1818, having bequeathed Ewshott House to his nephew, Rev. John Henry George Lefroy, who had in 1806 succeeded his father both as the rector and as the head of the English Lefroys. He seems to have resided in the rectory until his death in 1823, at the comparatively early age of forty-one. Of his younger brothers, Christopher Edward Lefroy, Esq., and Rev. Benjamin Lefroy, I shall have occasion to speak in another chapter. The second Lefroy-proprietor of Ewshott was Charles Edward Lefroy, Esq., the eldest surviving son of the deceased rector. During his possession of the estate and in the year 1829 the old house was pulled down, and the new and enlarged mansion was named after the manor of Itchell. Mr. C. E. Lefroy of Itchell Manor was born in 1810; he was educated at Winchester and at Christ-Church, Oxford, took his first degree in 1832 with honours, and proceeded to MA. in 1836. He was called to the Bar in June 1836, but indifferent health prevented him from practising his profession. He was a gentleman of distinguished benevolence, piety, and integrity. In 1840 the Right Hon. Charles Shaw Lefevre made him Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Commons, an office which he held for sixteen years; and after the Speaker’s elevation to the Viscountry of Eversley, he was made Taxing-Master to the House of Commons. He married in August 1845, Janet, eldest daughter of James Walker, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., Civil Engineer. In 1854, 800 acres of wild land in Mr. Lefroy’s property were required for the Board of Ordnance, and a compulsory sale was the consequence; a reasonable price, however, was to be agreed upon. Dr. Walker, his father-in-law, met the representatives of the Board, and the price £22,500 was agreed upon. Mr. Lefroy, regarding it as a matter of conscience, and also considering that he held a parliamentary office, feared that the price was extortionate, and requested a revaluation, and ultimately accepted £20,000 for the land, which is now a part of the domain of Aldershott. His wife died suddenly on 5th October 1858, and he resolved to build a church, sacred to her memory, at Fleet Railway Station, in his own property. His father-in-law joined in the project, and lived to see it opened on 15th April 1862; but at that date Mr. Lefroy had departed this life at the age of fifty-one, and in that church of Fleet there is this inscription:—

To Charles Edward Lefroy, Esq., born March 9, 1810, died April 17, 1861, founder of this church, who, in the midst of his work for God’s glory and the good of this parish, was taken to his rest.

The brothers of Mr. Lefroy are Rev. Anthony Cottrel Lefroy, M.A. of Christ Church, Oxford (born 1812), Incumbent of Crookham, Surrey, now Vicar of Longdon, near Tewkesbury; Lieut.-General Sir John Henry Lefroy, K.C.M.G., C.B., late Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery (born 1817), the historiographer of his family; and Henry Maxwell Lefroy, Esq. (born 1818), of Western Australia. Their eldest sister, Anne Lefroy, was married in August 1829 to John M‘Clintock, Esq., of Drumcar, M.P. for County Louth, who, on 21st December 1868, was created Baron Rathdonnell (he died 17th May 1879). The present head of the English Lefroys is the eldest son of Charles Edward, namely, Charles James Maxwell Lefroy, Esq., of Itchell Manor, late Captain in the 14th Hussars; he was born on 12th September 1848, and married, on 14th August 1872, a kinswoman of Lord Rathdonnell, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Alfred Henry M‘Clintock, Esq., M.D., LL.D.

1. This memoir is, to a very large extent, compiled from a splendid privately-printed folio, a presentation copy of which I received from the author, Lieut. General Sir John Henry Lefroy, K.C.M.G., C.B., entitled: “Notes and Documents relating to the family of Loffroy — of Cambray, prior to 1587 — of Canterbury, 1587-1779 — now chiefly represented by the families of Lefroy of Carriglase. co. Longford, Ireland, and of Itchel, Hants — with branches in Australia and Canada. Being a contribution to the History of Foreign Protestant Refugees. By a Cadet. For Private Circulation.” Woolwich, 1868.
2. There was at this date a Marie Loffroy, wife of Jean Longuet, and I thought of changing the names in the text accordingly, as a correction. I will not, however, presume to do so. I shall regard them as two couples, and will return to them when treating of the family of Longuet.
3. Another Thomas Paul Lefroy died in Dublin in 1806.