Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 20 - La Touche
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:—
In the vault beneath — rest the remains of
Peter la Touche Esq. of Bellevue.
During a residence in the parish of nearly fifty years
he was the constant benefactor of all within his reach,
a kind and indulgent master and landlord,
an attached and affectionate husband, and a steady and generous friend.
He died 26th Nov. 1828 at the advanced age of 95 years.
Trusting for his salvation to the merits of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
by few in his time could the words of Job have been so justly adopted:
When the ear heard me then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me,
because I delivered the poor that cried, the fatherless and him that had none to help him,
the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me,
and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
He adopted his nephew, Peter, a younger son of David of Marlay, as his heir, ancestor of the La Touches of Bellevue. The last-mentioned David was succeeded by his eldest son, David; he sold Marlay to his brother, who was named John David (born 1772, died 1838), and was the founder of the present La Touches of Marlay. The La Touches of Harristown have descended in an unbroken line from John of Harristown. John’s elder son, Robert of Harristown, M.P. for county Kildare, married in 1810, Lady Emily Le Poer Trench, daughter of the first Earl of Clancarty, and died in 1844; his daughter, Gertrude, was married in 1841 to Stanley, son of John M‘Clintock and Lady Elizabeth Le Poer Trench, sister of Lady Emily La Touche.
We must now return to James, the refugee’s second son. The business which he inherited prospered under him; he was the author of “Observations on the Embargo lately laid on the Exports of Beef, Pork, and Butter from Ireland.” By an arrangement with his elder brother, he adopted the double surname of “Digges La Touche;” he married in 1735 Elizabeth, daughter of David Chaigneau, Esq., and secondly, in 1743, Matilda Thwaites; he had five sons, two of whom were William Digges La Touche of Sans-Souci, and Peter Digges La Touche of Belfield. William was the British Resident at Bussora on the Persian Gulf, and he is thus memorialized in “Major Taylor’s Journey from England to India in 1789,” vol. ii., p. 302:— “No man ever deserved better at the hands of the Arabs, or was more highly respected and esteemed among them, than Mr. La Touche. His wonderful humanity and boundless generosity to the unhappy captives of Zebur had gained him their warmest affection. When Bussora was besieged by the Persians he sheltered within his own walls, and under the English flag, the principal people with their wives and families. And when the miserable inhabitants of Zebur, according to the custom of the Persians to persons taken in war, became the slaves of their opponents, he ransomed them without distinction at his own expense.” He was born in 1746 and died in 1803 suddenly, at his town house in St. Stephen’s Green. His son was James (born 1788, died 1827), a man worthy of the admirable Memoir, entitled, “Biographic Sketches of the late James Digges La Touche, Esq., banker, Dublin, Honorary Secretary to the Sunday School Society for Ireland during seventeen years from its commencement — by William Urwick, D.D.” To that book I am much indebted.