Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, whom I have just named, has written some instructive and amusing works, such as “The Administration of the British Army in 1858,” “Niphon and Pecheli,” travels in the service of the British Government in China and Japan, published in 1862, and “The Life and Correspondence of General Right Hon. John Burgoyne,” published in 1876. His father was Captain Thomas De Grenierde Fonblanque, K.H., of the 21st Fusiliers, who married, in 1815, a daughter of Sir Jonas Barrington, and died at Belgrade in 1861, as British Consul-General for Servia.
Although Albany Fonblanque did not assume the old French surnames, he had a just regard for his good ancestry. There hung in his study a framed pedigree surmounted by an elaborately emblazoned coat-of-arms, the margin of the parchment being embellished with quarterings. On its being hinted to him that such a display might seem inconsistent with radicalism, he replied that “he could see no possible connection between a man’s political opinions and the interest which it was natural and right for him to take in his family history and antecedents.”
In 1854 he went to Paris as the English representative of the International Statistical Congress. He continued to write occasional articles in the Examiner till 1860. After this date he courted quietude; he died on 13th October 1872, aged seventy-nine.
XIV. André.
Jaques André of Xismes died soon after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was a Huguenot, and when his great-grandson, Anthoine André, had settled in London as a married man, he took his eldest child to the French Church of St. Martin Orgars for baptism. (See in my Historical Introduction the baptism, dated 16th May 1750) That baptism I had the honour of discovering. All other information I obtain from Colonel Chester’s marvellous paper, entitled, “Some particulars respecting the family of Major John André,” and printed in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for March 1876.
David André, the elder son of Jaques, was a merchant in Genoa, living in a house “in the country of Locoli, near to the Church of St. Mary Magdalen,” and in partnership with Paul Sabonadière. He was unmarried, and for some unknown reason his Will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in London on 30th September 1738, he having died at Genoa on the 28th of March preceding. His brother, Jean André, is the ancestor of the André families in England and Geneva; he died before 1756 (as appears from his fourth son Jean) having had by his wife, Louise Vageille, five sons and two daughters, the third son being named Guillaume, who was the heir to two-thirds of his above-named Uncle David’s estates.
Guillaume André married Marie Privat; they both died at Geneva, he in 1748, and she in 1767; they had six sons and four daughters. The eldest son, Anthoine André, born in 1717, was naturalized in England by Act of Parliament in 1748. About that date he married Marie-Louise, daughter of Paul Girardot of Paris, a connection, probably, of the Girardot refugees. His eldest son, afterwards so famous as Major John André, was born on 2nd May 1750, and baptized at St. Martin Orgars. Mr. Anthony André was a prosperous merchant and resident at Clapton, where he died on 17th April 1769, and was buried in the family vault in St. Augustine’s Church-yard, Hackney. His widow survived till 22nd February 1813, when she died at Bath, in her ninety-second year. Their two sons and three daughters all died unmarried; the daughters’ wealth accumulated to a large sum. The second, Ann-Marguerite, who died in 1830, left £35,000; the youngest, Louisa Catherine, died in 1835, aged eighty-one; and the eldest, Mary Hannah, died in 1845, aged ninety-three. Each of them had long-cherished souvenirs of their dear brother, Jack.
The brothers of Anthony André, who settled in England, were David, born 1721, and John-Lewis, born 1720. David, who was an Italian merchant of Leadenhall Street, and afterwards of New Broad Street, married, on 8th September 175 1, Mary-Jane, daughter of Andrew Girardot of New Broad Street, merchant; she died in 1786, and he in 1791; their only son died in 1819, in his sixty-eighth year, unmarried. The other brother, John Lewis André was also a merchant in London, who died 24th March 1811, aged eighty-one. He had two sons, John-Lewis and James-Peter. John Lewis André, the second, was baptized in London on 1st January 1772; became a merchant in Camomile Street, and died in Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square, in 1848, and was the father of John Lewis André, the third, and of Anthony Alexander André. The above-named James Peter André, merchant in
