Hospital of London — Stephen in 1774, Peter in 1776, and James in 1777, and another Stephen in 1814.)
Stephen Beuzeville is the first person of Huguenot descent in Edinburgh who is described as a silk manufacturer. Mr. Clerk of Eldin’s drawing of a silk factory at Little Picardy, and of “a mulberry plantation on the slope of Moultrie Hill,” may depict a speculation of this Mr. Beuzeville and friends. The Board of Manufactures had no such undertaking; but the silk-grounds maybe conjectured to have been near the Huguenot village, although not in its ground. The ground consisted of five acres only, half-an-acre for each family, deducting what would be required for a road and walks. There was no bleaching-ground; from the first it was decided that the French people’s linen could not be properly bleached in Scotland; it was sent in a “green” state to be “whitened” in Holland.
Mr. Pierre Loumeau Du Pont probably survived all his congregation. He died March 1786, and was on the 13th buried in Greyfriars’ Churchyard, “north Phesdos tomb.” At that period the Recorder was not in the habit of stating the ages of those buried, but he had a column for the cause of death, which a physician might give him information of. In Mr. Du Pont’s case, the entry is — Cause of death, “87 years.” The French church was finally closed.
With regard to the families in Little Picardy, the name Paulin (often in old times spelt Polain) still meets our view. Whether we have representatives of Huguenots in them I cannot tell. One of our Scottish minor poets is Mr. George Paulin, and his son, Mr. David Paulin, is now manager of the Scottish Life Assurance Company. I traced his family in the registers, and found it in the parish of Ladykirk in 1698, the name being then spelt Palin, and I conjecture that its origin is English rather than French.
The name Dassauville kept its ground till recently, and the family is still represented through females (I do not assert that there is no male representative). The old tendency was to the spelling of Dassevile — latterly, the spelling was accurate, but the pronunciation was Dossavil. The first funeral recorded in the register of Calton burying-ground from the village of Picardy, near Edinburgh, was “Mary Dasaviley, aged three,” March 8, 1735. Nicholas Dassauville, the head of the colony, was born in 1692; John Dassauville, one of the weavers, was his brother. John died in June or July 1737; his property was administered to by his brother, Nicholas, designed “wright, at Little Picardy.” John is described as “cambric weaver at Little Picardy, near Broughton, in the paroch of St. Cuthbert’s, aliàs West-Kirt” [West Kirk]. His brother had undertaken to send his cambrics to Holland to be bleached; and having this stock to account for, he appeared as executor on 23rd February 1738. John (I may say, as there is no trace of a third brother) was the father of a second Nicholas, whose children will appear in due course. Nicholas the first died on 9th February 1760, and his burial on the 12th in the Calton ground is registered as of “Nicoll Dasevile, from Pickardy, aged 68.” In the Commissariot books he is designated, “Lapper and Stamper of Linen at Picardy, in the shire of Edinburgh.” This office had a salary of £10 per annum, and he was succeeded in it by Duncan, his son and sole executor.
Duncan Dassauville had married, on 18th November 1759, Katharine, daughter of George Yule, farmer in East Fenton, in the parish of Dirlcton. On 16th May 1771 he became cautioner for the executor of Rev. John Baptiste Beuzeville, and was called “Duncan Dassauville, Caroline weaver at Picardie.” (There is a puzzle here; is “Caroline” a clerical error for “cambric,” or does it mean “silk”?[1] I have found nothing more about him, except that his wife as his widow died in July 1787, and left no children, her heirs being the children of his first cousin, Nicholas Dassauville, manufacturer in Picardy, who were named Duncan, James, Nicol, and William. From her inventory I extract the French books:— “French Bible” and “French Dictionary,” 4s.; “Robinson Crusoe,” in French, 2 vols., 1s.; “Boyer’s Dictionary,” 1s.; “French Catechism,” 3d.; “Dialogues Rustiques and Plays,” in French, 1s. 6d.; “Les Marquardes Françoises” and “Principles of the Christian Religion,” in French, 2d.
Of the heirs of the Dassauville family I think that I observe one in the “Edinburgh Directory” for 1817, namely, William Dassauville, engraver, Gosford’s Close. Either he or one of his brothers was the father of Nicholas Dassauville, surgeon and dentist in South St. Andrew Street, and latterly at Northumberland Street, for about forty years. He was senior elder of Trinity College Church, Edinburgh,[2] under the
