There are very distinct family traditions, narrating the great difficulties experienced by the refugee in escaping from France, and declaring that his younger brother remained in France as a New Catholic, and by royal permission appropriated the above-mentioned estate, which was considerable. The refugee’s will requiring Pierre’s consent to marriages, contracted before the age of twenty-five by his nephews the testator’s sons, it is maintained that Pierre died before 1709, the year in which young Peter married with the consent of his mother only. It is certain that young Augustine never got his French estate; at his death in 1751 he left mourning rings “to his cousins Peter and Augustine Courtauld,” who are unknown to the registers in England, but were, of course, Pierre’s descendants, and probably denizens of France, conformists to Romanism.
The first evidence of the residence in England of Augustine Courtauld, senior, is the record of his second marriage, which took place on the 10th March 1688-9, in the Glasshouse Street French Church, London. The circumstance that he often appears in the registers after this date, either as a godfather or as a witness, but never before it, implies that he had recently arrived in England. He is described as of the Province of St. Onge, and his wife is called Esther Potier of La Rochelle. On the 19th January 1689-90 was baptized Peter, son of Augustine Courtauld of the Isle d’Oleron in St. Onge, merchant, and Esther Potier. Peter left no noteworthy descendants, though he had many children by his wife, Judith Pantin, whom he married in the Church of Le Tabernacle, 5th February 1708-9, the marriage allegation being made by Isaiah Pantin, of the parish of St. James’s, Westminster, goldsmith.
The Courtaulds, as a prominent family in their adopted kingdom, descend from Augustine, the son of Augustine by Julia Giron, the refugee’s first wife, who died in France. The refugee himself died, aged about forty-five only, in London, and was buried at St. Anne’s, Soho, on the 20th September 1706; his will was proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Middlesex on the 5th October, by his widow and by his brother, who paid a visit to this country for that purpose. As to Augustine, the second, it is probable that the Isle d’Oleron was the place of his birth, and that he was brought over as a refugee infant; the date of his birth was 1686. He married Anne Bardin[1] of Chelsea, but, as the registers of the Chelsea French Church have been lost, the memory of this and several other domestic dates has been lost also. He had eight children, and in taking the legal steps for the marriage of one of his daughters he declared himself to be forty-three years of age on the 21st May 1729. He died in 1751, aged sixty-five; his wife and himself died in the same year, she being buried on the 26th March, and he on the 14th April, both in the parish churchyard of Chelsea. He was a goldsmith, and he left behind him a lucrative trade, £2000 in portions of £400 each to his surviving children, small bequests to other persons, including his late brother’s children, mourning rings to relatives and friends, including a Mr. Peter Roubeleau [or Riboleau], and £10 for the poor of the French Church in Orange Street, commonly called Leicester-Fields Church. This was his place of worship during the greater part of his married life, his house being in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. His surviving children were Anne, wife of John Jacob; Esther, wife of Stephen Goujon; Judith (unmarried); Augustine (born 1718); and Samuel (born 10th September 1720.)
Augustine Courtauld, the third, was baptised on the 24th July 1718, his sponsors being Jacob de Milon and Jane Riboleau. He married on 19th March 1748-9, a cousin, Jane Bardin, daughter of John Bardin, by Renée Aveline, his wife. His children were two daughters, and the male line was continued by his brother Samuel.
Samuel Courtauld was baptised on the 13th September 1720; his sponsors were Samuel Aveline and Catherine Blanchard. On 31st August 1749 he married a daughter of Peter Ogier, silkweaver, formerly of Poitou, by his wife, Catherine Rabaud, Louisa Perina Ogier, who, like her eight brothers and sisters, inherited £250 on her father’s death in 1740. After his father’s death Samuel Courtauld removed to the parish of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, and to the French Church of Threadncedle Street; he died in 1765. In his Will he describes himself as a jeweller. His eldest son, Augustine, died in infancy. The second, Samuel (born 1752, died 1821), became a prosperous merchant in the State of Delaware in America. Several other children died either young or unmarried, of whom the youngest was Sophia (born 1763, died 1850). Catherine, the sixth child and third daughter (born 1760, died 1826), had as sponsors Mr. Giles Godin and Mrs. Francis Catherine Merzeau (née Ogier), and was
- ↑ Perhaps the Bardins also were refugees from Saintonge. Among the graduates at Edinburgh University, 29th July 1600, were Joachimus Dubouchet, Gallus — Theodorus du Bouchet, Gallus — Joannes Bardin, Xanetonienns.
