Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 12 - Section VII
VII. Rev. Canon Chevallier, B.D.
I long had the hope of being able to connect the Chevallier family with the refugee Professor of Hebrew, Raoul (or Rodolphe) Le Chevallier, aliàs Rodolphus Cevallerius, who died on his way home to Oxford, in the Island of Guernsey, in 1572. His son was the Pasteur Samuel Le Chevallier, French pasteur of Canterbury in 1590, who by Lea Cappel had several children (see a list in my Historical Introduction). I have made unsuccessful enquiries for a pedigree or some genealogical hints, and finally was referred to an oracle at Ipswich, but the oracle was dumb. The family which I have found, however, is said to be sprung from “French Huguenots, who left France for Jersey, in consequence of the troubles of the sixteenth century, and proceeded thence to England.” Before the accession of George III., it had become a Suffolk family; and the first notice that has met my eye is the following:—
“20th Oct. 1762. — Rev. Mr. Chevallier was instituted to the living of Great Wrattling, in Suffolk, on his own petitions, himself being the patron, and to the rectory of Kedington alias Ketton, in Suffolk, on the presentation of Mr Henry Harrington.” This clergyman is the same as Rev. Temple Chevallier, of Aspal — so styled in 1796. Next we find the Rev. Temple Fishe Chevallier, Rector of Badingham, in Suffolk [son of the above?]; he married Sarah Edgecumbe. Mrs. Chevallier gave birth, on 19th October 1794, to twin sons — (1) Temple, (2) Richard Edgecumbe, and they were baptized privately the same day. I am not informed as to the younger son, but I am now to give a memoir of Temple,[1] who, though he may have seemed delicate when new-born, did, by “reason of strength,” reach the verge of fourscore years.
The school education of Temple Chevallier was obtained at Bury St. Edmund’s and at Ipswich. At the University of Cambridge he had an eminent career. He took his first degree with honours as Second Wrangler. He was ordained as a clergyman in 1820, and proceeded to the degree of B.D. He was Vicar of the Parish of St. Andrew the Great in Cambridge, and Fellow and Tutor of St. Catherine Hall. In one year he was examiner both in Classics and Mathematics; “he is the only man who has been thus distinguished.” He was the Hulscan Lecturer in the years 1826 and 1827. The title of his first course of Lectures was “On the Historical Types contained in the Old Testament — twenty Discourses preached before the University of Cambridge, in the year 1826, at the Lectures founded by the Rev. John Hulse.” The other Hulsean volume was entitled, “Proofs of the Divine Power and Wisdom derived from the Study of Astronomy.” He also published “A translation of the Epistles of Clement of Rome, Polycarp and Ignatius, and of the Apologies of Justin Martyr and Tertullian, with an introduction and brief notes illustrative of the Ecclesiastical History of the first two centuries,” Cambridge, 1833. He edited “Pearson on the Creed;” his edition was printed at Cambridge in 1859.
In 1834 he removed from Cambridge to Durham University, to which lately founded institution he dedicated his commanding talents and zealous labours. He accepted the Professorship of Mathematics, and founded the Durham Astronomical Observatory, of which he was the first Director. He also undertook the pastoral charge of the parish of Esh, to which he was presented by Wadham College (Oxford), and he laboured there for about thirty-five years. The large majority of his parishioners being Romanists, his duties and experiences were like those of an old Huguenot pasteur; but happily the priest could subject him to no worse sufferings than the reports of volleys of curses fulminated from his pretended Catholic altar. Mr. Chevallier was made a Canon of Durham Cathedral in 1865. His health failed in 1871, and he died in his eightieth year, on 4th November 1873.
An aunt of the Reverend Canon, Harriet Chevallier, was married, in 1796, to John Cobbold, Esq. (son of John, son of Thomas), of The Holywells near Ipswich, born 1774, died 1860; she predeceased him in 1831, having had six sons and eight daughters. Her eldest son was John Chevallier Cobbold, Esq., of The Holywells, born 24th August 1797, M.P. for Ipswich from 1847 to 1868, died 6th October 1882, having had eight sons and five daughters. His eldest son, John Patterson Cobbold, Esq., M.P. (born 1831, died 1875), had a son and heir, John Dupuis Cobbold, born in 1861, who is now of Holywells, Wise Bishop, and Capel Hall, and was one of his grandfather’s executors. The other executors were the testator’s sons, Thomas Clement Cobbold, C.B., born 1833; Nathaniel Fromanteel Cobbold, born 1839; Felix Thornley Cobbold, born 1841.
- ↑ I am much indebted to a Memoir in Sunday at Home.