Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 25 - James Robinson Planché
James Robinson Planché, Somerset Herald, was a descendant of a refugee, said to have escaped from France concealed in a tub. The first refugee names on record are his sons or grandsons, Paul, Antoine, and Pierre Antoine Planché, or Planchet. Antoine married Mary Thomas, and had an only child, a daughter. Pierre Antoine, East India merchant of London in 1763, was, by his wife, Sarah Douglas, the father of Captain John Douglas Planché of the 60th Foot (who died on active service in the West Indies in 1812), and grandfather of James Planché, a settler in America. We return to Paul Planché, who married, in 1723, Marie Anne Fournier, and had five sons. One of these sons was Andrew Planché (born 1728, died at Bath after 1804), the first maker of china (porcelain) in Derby, who, in his humble residence in Lodge Lane, “modelled and made small articles in china, principally animals — birds, cats, dogs, lambs, &c. — which he fired in a pipe-maker’s oven in the neighbourhood.” There is extant an agreement between John Heath, of Derby, gentleman, Andrew Planché of the same place, china-maker, and William Duesbury, of Langton, Staffordshire, enameller, dated 1st January 1756. Three sons of Andrew Planché and Sarah his wife, named Paul, James, and William, were registered at Derby. The youngest son of Paul, and brother of Andrew, was Jacques, baptised at the French Church in Leicester-Fields, London, in 1734, his sponsor being Jacques de Guion de Pampeleonne.[1] He was a watchmaker, and married the only child of his uncle, Antoine Planché. James Robinson Planché, his son, born in London, 27th February 1796, is the subject of this memoir. In 1818 he made his successful debut as a dramatic author. His employments, connected with theatrical business, led him to the ardent study of costume. In consequence, he has attained great and just celebrity by his “History of British Costume,” the first edition of which appeared as a volume of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge in 1834, and a new edition in 1847. Before this publication, Mr Blanche’s talents had been acknowledged in high quarters, he having been elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 24th December 1829. As to the years 1836, &c, he writes — “At the choice little dinners of my friend Thomas George Fonnereau, in the Albany — a great lover and liberal patron of art — I constantly met Eastlake, Stanfield, Roberts, Maclise, and Decimus Burton, the architect.” Between 1837 and 1840 he wrote the history of costume and furniture in the sixth chapter of each book of the Pictorial History of England. In 1838 he published “Regal Records.” Acquaintance with coats-of-mail, shields, and helmets, naturally led to the study of heraldry. Mr. Planché constantly visited the College of Arms as an amateur and an enquirer, and received all the courteous attention and aid for which the College is renowned. About 1851 he brought out his volume entitled “The Poursuivant of Arms, or Heraldry founded upon Facts;” and in 1854 he actually became a Poursuivant, with the title of Rouge Croix. In 1866 he was promoted to the dignity of Somerset Herald; during that year he edited the eighteenth edition of Clarke’s Introduction to Heraldry. In 1872 he published two volumes of “Recollections and Reflections” (on which my memoir is founded). “To my dear grandchildren (he writes) I dedicate these recollections of a life, the decline of which has been cheered by their smiles, and blessed by their affection.”
This epistle did not prove to be a valedictory one. He afterwards published two volumes, entitled “The Conqueror and his Companions.” The crowning work of his literary life was a large and splendid publication, entitled “The Cyclopedia of British Costume.” His friends also collected a literary monument to him in his lifetime, namely, a uniform series of his dramatic burlesques, which extended to five volumes. This style of composition he had begun as a schoolboy, when he attracted notice by his “Amoroso, King of Little Britain.” The Annual Register assures us that there was nothing objectionable in these burlesques, which the author would rather have called extravaganzas; “the travesty is conceived in a spirit of refined and genial humour, abounds in graceful imagery and wit, and is free from all meretricious features.” Mr. Planché died at Chelsea on 30th May 1880, aged eighty-four. His daughter Matilda Anne, born in 1826, died on 6th May 1881, as the widow of the Rev. H. S. Mackarness. Mrs. Mackarness was the author of “Sunbeam Stories,” four series of booklets, somewhat in the style of Charles Dickens, but with a more affectionate and catholic tone, the first of which was entitled, “A Trap to Catch a Sunbeam.”
- ↑ Perhaps it was Mr. Planché’s love of burlesque that made him print this name Pampelune.