Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 9 - Section VII
VII. Delmé.
The family of Delmé springs from Michiel de Le me of Nomayn, aliàs Normain, probably the town of Nomeny in Flanders. His son, Adrian, was a refugee in Norwich. His signature as a diacre of the French Church in that city — “Adrien de Le me” — appears in the Norwich Book of Discipline, now in the British Museum. His will is copied in my Historical Introduction. At its date, 28th September 1603, the testator declares himself to be “of fifty-four years of age;” it was proved in the consistory of Norwich on the following December 9. His children were Pierre, Jaques, Marie, Annis (probably a name of endearment for Anne, the S being mute), Philippe, and Nathaniel. The eldest, Pierre, seems to have adopted the signature “Pierre de me.” Like his father, he was a deacon; he was married and had children, but no surviving descendants have been affiliated to him. Marie de Le me was the wife of Jaques Le Grin (aliàs Le Greyn, properly Le Grain), who signed as a frère-en-charge on 12th August 1596. Annis or Anne was the wife of Jean Castel who signed on 4th July 1615; she died at Canterbury, as his widow, in 1652. Philippe, who adopted the name of Delmé, was the pasteur successively of Norwich and of Canterbury, whose memoir is in my Chapter II. These slight notices are all that I can collect of the family viewed as a Norwich family.
There seems always to have been a close correspondence between the refugee families of Norwich and Canterbury, and frequent intermarriages. It was while he was minister at Norwich that the pasteur, Philippe Delmé, on 29th December 1616, was married at Canterbury to Elizabeth Maurois. (This lady in her will mentioned a nephew, David Desquire of Norwich, who signed as a deacon there on 29th May 1634.) Mr. Delmé was translated to the French Church of Canterbury in or about 1619; and as he is the ancestor of the old English family, that family in its second stage was a Canterbury family.[1]
| Rev. Philippe Delmé, pasteur of Canterbury, died 22d April 1653. |
= | Elizabeth Maurois, was married on 29th December 1616; her will was proved 11th November 1672. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elie, pasteur of London French Church, 1653, died unmarried (I could not find his baptism). |
Elizabeth, bapt.1619, wife of Samuel Du Bois, survived him as his widow. |
Anne, bapt. 1621. |
Jeanne or Jane, wife of Rev. John Crow. (I could not find her baptism; but she is in the family wills). |
Philippe, bapt. 1627, died 1632. |
Pierre, bapt. 1630, of whom presently. |
Jean, bapt.1633, merchant of London. |
= |
Deborah Leadbetter. | ||||||||||||
| Elizabeth, Mrs Van Heythuysen, only child (see Chapter II.). | ||||||||||||||||||||
The third stage presents us with a London family. Mrs. Delmé née Maurois, having been left a widow in 1653, joined in London her son Elie, pasteur of Threadneedle Street. At the date of her husband’s death, her son, Peter Delmé, was aged twenty-three, and John Delmé was aged twenty. Before many years these were her only surviving sons, and both became prosperous merchants and men of rare excellence. Mr. Peter Delmé citizen and dyer, in or about 1664, married Sibilla Nightingale; they lived in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, where their eldest son, an infant, was buried on 26th January 1665 (new style); she survived him for many years. His holograph will has been presented to my readers beside the will of his refugee grandfather in my Historical Introduction. From it it may be inferred that he died about Christmas 1686, or New Year’s day 1687. In my gleanings from registers the reader will find the baptisms of his children, and in his will the names of the six survivors at its date. Thus briefly, for want of materials, I dismiss them all, except his eldest surviving son Pierre, the ancestor of the English family, aliàs Sir Peter.
Pierre Delmé, junior, was baptized in the city of London French Church, Threadneedle Street, on 17th February 1667. The witnesses were his uncle, John Delmé, and Anne, wife of Joseph De la Motte, for whom the infant’s grandmother stood proxy. The next mention I find of him is in the will of that uncle, dated 1707. Mr. Peter Delmé was then forty years of age. Possessing an ample fortune, and not requiring any substantial legacy, he was ignored as a nephew, and was appointed one of his uncle’s executors as a “good friend” of the testator. In or about the year 1709 he married Anne, daughter of Cornelius Macham, of Southampton, and his eldest son and heir was born in 1710. Mr. Delmé proved his uncle’s will on 13th February 1712 (new style). He was bereaved of his young wife (aged twenty-six) on 1st January 1714 (n.s.). At this date he was a common council-man, and probably an alderman of the city of London. On March 13 he received a grant of arms from Queen Anne, namely, “Or an anchor erected Sab. between two lions passt. gardant in fess Gules. Crest: A lion passant Gules before an anchor Sab., wreath, Or and Sab.” George I. came to the throne on the following August 1; and on 23rd September 17 14, along with the Lord Mayor of London, Mr. Delmé, as alderman of Langbourn Ward, waited upon his Majesty, and received the honour of knighthood at St. James’s Palace. After a period of widowhood he married a second wife, Mary, daughter of William Fawkener, of London.
His civic career can be traced in the Historical Register. On 15th April 1717, Sir Peter Delmé, knight and alderman, was elected a Director of the Bank of England, and occupied his seat for ten years by annual re-election. On 24th June he was elected a Sheriff of London and Middlesex. In May 17 18 he became Lieutenant-General of the Artillery Company of London. In 1722 the Lord Mayoralty began to open to his view. “28th September. This day came on the election of a Lord Mayor of the city of London for the year ensuing. Sir Gerard Conyers and Sir Peter Delmé, the two aldermen next the chair, were declared to have a majority of hands in the Common Hall. But a poll was demanded and granted for Sir George Mertins and Sir Francis Forbes, which began on the 1st of October, and ended on the 3rd. The next day the Sheriffs declared that having cast up the poll, the majority of votes had fallen on Sir Gerard Conyers and Sir Peter Delmé, who were accordingly returned to the Court of Aldermen, who made choice of the former.” Domestic bereavement visited Delmé at two remarkable epochs of his life. His first wife was not destined to be Lady Delmé; his second wife was not to be a Lady-Mayoress. Lady Delmé died on 5th May 1723. On September 28 of that year the Court of Aldermen declared him Lord Mayor of London for the year ensuing, and he fulfilled his year of office. He died suddenly on 4th September 1728, in the sixty-second year of his age.
Sir Peter’s daughter, Anne, was married, in April 1735, to Sir Henry Liddell, Bart., M.P. for Morpeth, afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Ravensworth; her only child, Anne, was married in 1756 to Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton, and is ancestress of the succeeding line of dukes. The Duchess of Grafton’s second son was General Lord Charles Fitzroy, father of Vice-Admiral the Hon. Robert Fitzroy, M.P., the chief of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade.
Peter Delmé, eldest son and heir of Sir Peter Delmé, was born on 28th February 1710, and baptized in London at St. Gabriel’s, Fenchurch Street. He was styled “of Grosvenor Square,” and was M.P. for Luggershall, in Wiltshire, from 1734 to 1741, and for Southampton from 1741 to 1754. He married, first, in 1737, Anna Maria, daughter of Sir John Shaw, Bart., of Eltham (she died in 1740); and secondly, in 1741, Miss Christian Pain, also of Eltham, who was the mother of his children, two sons and two daughters. The elder son, John, of Erie Stoke, Wilts, died in 1768. Mr Delmé died 10th April 1770. His surviving son was Peter Delmé, Esq., M.P. for Morpeth, who was the squire of Titchfield Place (Hants), of Erie Stoke (Wilts), and of Canon Hill, Braywick (Berks). He was born on 19th December 1748, and married, on 16th February 1769, Lady Elizabeth Howard, “the beauty of the court of Queen Charlotte,” fifth daughter of the Earl of Carlisle. (This lady survived him, and re-married with Captain Charles Garnier, R.N.) This Mr. Delmé sold Erie Stoke, and bought Cams Hall; he died in 1789, in his forty -first year; he was the founder of two families.
His eldest son was John Delmé, Esq., of Cams Hall, near Fareham (Hants), born 25th July 1772; he married Frances, eldest daughter of George Garnier, Esq., of Wickham. His eldest son, John, died aged about twenty-one. His successor was the second son, Henry Peter Delmé, of Cams Hall, born 1793. He was an officer in the Connaught Rangers (88th Foot), was present at Vittoria, the battles of the Pyrenees, and other engagements, for which he received the Peninsular medal with six clasps. He married Mary (who died in 1871), eldest daughter of John Gage, Esq., of Rogate, brother of the third Viscount Gage, and died 29th January 1883, aged ninety. The third son of John Delmé, Esq., was Captain George Delmé, R.N.
The younger son of Mr. and Lady Elizabeth Delmd became in 1832 (in right of his wife, née Anne Milicent Clarke, representative of the Radcliffes) Emilius Henry Delmé Radcliffe, Esq., of Hitchin Priory (born 1774, died 1832). He was succeeded by his eldest son, Frederick Peter Delmé Radcliffe, Esq., born in 1804; the third son, the late Rev. Charles Delmé Radcliffe, was the father of LieutenantColonel Emilius Charles Delmé Radcliffe, of the 88th Regiment, and of Rev. Henry Eliot Delmé Radcliffe, Rector of South Tedworth. The above-named FrederickPeter died 30th November 1875, and was succeeded by his fifth but eldest surviving son, Captain Hubert Delmé Radcliffe, of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. This gallant officer died 13th October 1878, aged thirty-nine; and he was succeeded by his next brother, Francis Augustus Delmé Radcliffe, Esq., now of Hitchin Priory, born 1st June 1845, married, 14th April 1874, Georgy Melosina Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Admiral Sir Charles Talbot, K.C.B.
- ↑ Some of the old Nomeny stock seem to have staid in their native country until about 1650, when another family of Delmé came over to London. This accounts for entries in the French Registers which I duly inserted in my Historical Introduction, but which cannot be fitted into the pedigree of the descendants of the first refugee.