death is recorded as having occurred on 5th August 1884, when he is styled "of Kimpton House, Herts." (2.) Major Charles Edward Harenc (born 17th July 1842), entered the army as a cornet in the 5th Lancers, in 1861, and became a lieutenant in 1863, in which rank he was transferred in 1869 to the Bengal Staff Corps, where he has continued, having become a captain in 1873, and a major in 1881. He served in the Lughman Valley Expedition in the Afghan War of 1880, and received a medal. (3.) Sub-Lieutenant Archibald Kempt Harenc was in the Navy List several years ago.
Kenny. — Several families of this name are believed to descend from a Huguenot refugee who settled in Ireland, and whose son Thomas Kenny (died 1725) married Frances, a grand-daughter of Rev. John Courtney, Rector of Ballinrobe, and was the father of Captain Courtney Kenny. The eldest son of the latter was Thomas (born 1734, died 1812), father of Lieutenant-Colonel William Kenny (who met a soldier’s death in India in 1803), of Thomas, Junior (father of Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Kenny), of Lieutenant-General David Crowe Kenny (father of William), and of Captain Courtney Kenny (father of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Kenny of Madras), The second son of the refugee’s grandson was another Courtney Kenny (born 1736, died 1809), father of a third Courtney (born 1781, died 1863), whose representative is the present Stanhope William Fenton Kenny, J.P., of Ballinrobe. The second Courtney had a second son, Mason Stanhope Kenny, M.D., of Halifax, Yorkshire (born 1786, died 1865), who was the father of William Fenton Kenny and of Rev. Lewis Stanhope Kenny, Rector of Kirkby-Knowles. A third son of the second Courtney was John, father of Courtney Bermingham Kenny.
La Touche. — An old history of Dublin justly observes, “The moral qualities brought and exercised by the refugees and their descendants proved the most valuable acquisition to Dublin; their names are to be found among the promoters of all our religious and charitable institutions. And one is so conspicuous that notice would be superfluous and eulogy impertinent — who does not know, and knowing, not prize, the excellent family of La Touche?” The refugee in 1686 (aged fifteen) belonged to the family of the Seigneurs de La Touche whose surname was Digues; he had an Uncle Louis Digues Seigneur de la Brosse, a refugee in Amsterdam. David Digues de La Touche was serving as a gentleman cadet in the citadel of Valenciennes, his brother Paul and others insisting upon his perversion to Romanism. He wrote to an aunt that he intended to remove secretly to Amsterdam; she replied, giving her consent, and sending him a hundred gold crowns and a Bible. This Bible is still preserved; it fared otherwise with the money, for he forgot to take it out of his pocket on the roadside when he exchanged clothes with a peasant. A penniless foot-passenger, he at length rested upon a door-step, humming a Huguenot tune, in Amsterdam. An elderly gentleman came up to him, and the following dialogue took place, the senior speaking first:— Are you a Frenchman? Yes, sir. What is your country? Le Blessois. Where were you born? At the chateau de La Touche, near Mer de Blessois. Are you a Protestant? Yes. What are you doing here? Nothing yet; I am only just arrived. What do you intend to do? Whatever my uncle wishes. Who is your uncle? Louis Digues de La Brosse, and I am looking for his house. Come with me, my child, I will show it to you! The gentleman was his uncle, who adopted him. La Touche completed his military education, and in 1688 accompanied King William, whom he served as an officer of La Caillemotte’s regiment. On retiring from it, he founded a silk, poplin, and cambric manufactory in Dublin. He was trusted with deposits of money and valuables by his brother-refugees, and this suggested the formation of a Bank, which in 1735 was removed from the factory salerooms in High Street to the banking premises in Castle Street, Dublin, where, as all the world knows, it still flourishes. He lived to enter his seventy-fourth year; “on 17th October 1745 he was found upon his knees in the Castle Chapel — dead.” He had married Judith Biard, daughter of Noë Biard by Judith Chevalier, and left two sons; David succeeded him in the Bank, and James in the factory. David dropped the surname “Digues” or Digges; he was born on 31st December 1703 and died in 1785, and was the senior partner of Messrs David La Touche & Sons. The sons were the Right Hon. David La Touche of Marlay, M P., John La Touche, Esq. of Harristown, and Peter La Touche, Esq. of Bellevue. Bellevue, in the parish of Delgany, had been the father’s country residence, who had changed the name from Ballydonough. Peter adorned the name of La Touche, and built a new church at Delgany, where, beneath a splendid monument, by which he had proclaimed his father’s excellences, his own well-deserved reputation is thus described:—
