Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/290

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
274
french protestant exiles.

existing property of that church as “Premises in St. George’s Colgate, derived from Sebastien Taverniers and his wife.”

The name of De Le mé, which Rev. Philippe D. and his descendants changed into Delmé, continued in Norwich as Du mé and De mé The French Church property of Norwich includes an annuity of £15 under the will of James De mé, dated 26th January 1717, proved 8th November 1718.

Obré.

“The family of Obré is of French extraction, being Huguenot refugees, and obtained their property in Ireland by the marriage of Captain Francis Obré with Elinor Stanhowe in 1632.”

Francis Obré Esq. of Clantilew, Co. Armagh, married in 1752, died 1812. = Mary Clarke of Ardress, died 1814.
Edward Obré, Esq. of Clantilew, married in 1802, died 1817. = Sarah O'Neill, died 1835.
Francis, died unmarried. Edward, died unmarried. Ralph Smith Obré, Esq. of Clantilew, born 1814, mar. 1844. = Jane Caroline, dau. of H. Coote Bond, Esq. of Bondvile.
Edward Stanley Obré, born 1845, married 1871. = Georgina Augusta, daughter of Capt. William R.N.

(From “Burke’s Landed Gentry.”)

Paget.

Valerian Paget, a French Protestant refugee, settled in Leicestershire in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Leonard Paget, his son, founded a family represented in last century by Thomas Paget, Esq. of Humberstone, near Leicester, a landowner. He was famous as a breeder of cattle, and later in life joined with a partner in founding the Leicester Bank, which still exists under the firm of Thomas Paget and Thomas Tertius Paget, having its head office in the county town, and branch offices at Melton-Mowbray and Loughborough. Thomas Paget, its founder, had a son, Thomas, born in 1779, who was elected one of the M.P.’s for Leicestershire in 1831, and retired in 1832. Having taken an intense interest in the Reform Act, he was equally gratified by the passing of the new Municipal Corporations Act, under which he was the first Mayor of Leicester in 1836. He died at Humberstone on 25th November 1862, aged eighty-three. Among other descendants of the old refugee I observe the names of Edmund Arthur Paget, Esq. of Thorpe, near Melton, and Charles Paget, Esq. of Ruddington, late M.P. for Nottingham.

Phillippo.

The true spelling of this Norwich refugee surname is said to be Phelipôt. If in search of the earliest French names in that city, we must consult the Book of Discipline, in which the first date is 29th April 1589, or the baptismal register begun on 22d June 1595. (The French Church began about 1572, but the earliest entries and dates are lost.) On 25th December 1595, “Pierre Phillipot” appears as the head of a house; on that day his daughter Sara was baptised. The tendency in pronouncing the surname was to drop the first vowel and to emphasise the second, so that a usual form of the name was “Phlipot.” “Flipote” was a feminine baptismal name coined in honour of the family (see 25th November 1604). On 7th September 1595 we find “Ernou Fphlipot” registered as a sponsor at a separate baptism. As “Ernou Philipo” he appears as a father on 8th October 1609. In the same year Ernou and Marie “Phlipot” are sponsors to Marie, daughter of Pierre Phlipot, the same person as the Phillipot[1] of 1595. The first diacre belonging to the family signed himself “Elie

  1. The English surname Philpot was probably originally Philipot, and of old French or Norman origin. This was the spelling adopted by John Philipot, Richmond Herald, a once famous antiquary, a native of Eltham in Kent, who died in 1645, and by his son Thomas, M.A. of Clare Hall, Cambridge, who, among other books, published “Poems” (1646) and Antiquitas Theologica et Gentilis (1670). The dedicatory epistle to the latter booklet is signed Thomas Philipot.