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.
