the wife of William Taylor, Esq. The fourth son was George, who continued the direct line of the Courtaulds.
George was born 19th September 1761, he acted as Secretary of the Eglise de La Patente till 1785, when he emigrated to America, and died at Pittsburg, 13th August 1823. George Courtauld, “after a life of most varied enterprise in America and in England, invested what property he finally found himself possessed of in the purchase of lands in the Western States, and died as he was about to introduce the growth and manufacture of silk into the State of Ohio. He was a man of great power of character, and of great philanthropy, and it is said of him that in all his path through life he left a track of light behind him.” By his wife Ruth, daughter of Stephen Minton of Cork (whom he married in America, and who died in England, aged ninety-two), he had eight children; his eldest surviving child, Louisa Perina (born 1791), widow of Abraham Clemens of America, resided for some time in Edinburgh; she died at 1 Carlung Place, Edinburgh, on 12th March 1883, aged ninety-two. Another daughter, Catherine (born 1795), was married to her first cousin, Peter Alfred Taylor, Esq. At the death of George Courtauld in 1823, his eldest surviving son, Samuel, became the head of the family.
Samuel Courtauld, Esq. of Gosfield Hall, near Halstead, Essex, was born in the City of Albany in the State of New York, 1st June 1793. He married in 1822 his first cousin, Ellen, daughter of William Taylor, Esq. He inherited a passion for manufactures, and founded the firm of Samuel Courtauld & Co., crape manufacturers, of Halstead, Braintree, and Bocking. For very many years he was the head of this firm, and active in the management. On his retirement he resided “at the historical mansion of Gosfield Hall, which he had purchased, and which he had the happy taste to restore and improve without destroying.” He died 21st March 1881, worth £700,000. He had no children, and he bequeathed Gosfield Hall and 76 Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park, to two adopted daughters. He had survived his brother George for twenty years; he was succeeded in the firm by that brother’s sons, George Courtauld (born 1830), M.P. for Maldon, and Sydney Courtauld.
IV. Various Persons and Memorabilia.
From much more ancient times than the era of the dragonnades and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, English manufactures had been immensely indebted to foreign Protestant immigrants and refugees. The comparative toleration which the Huguenots reaped from the Edict of Nantes, they repaid to France by their skill, industry, and inventive powers, so that the beautiful, industrial products and manufactures of France were mainly the work of Protestant hands. These goods brought annually a great flow of money into the kingdom, especially from England. Both the money and the manufactories were to a great extent lost to France, when the masters and workmen had to fly by tens of thousands from fanatical persecution. The benefit was largely transferred to Britain.
As Mr. Durrant Cooper, the editor of “The Savile Correspondence,” observes, to Henry Savile “belongs the honour of suggesting that wise course which turned the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to such an advantage for the future prospects of England.” He wrote to Secretary Jenkins from Paris, 21st October 1681:—
“I send this in favour of a Protestant linen-draper who with all his substance has resolved to retire into England, in order to which he has packed up his shop and sent it in specie to Dunkirk, having paid all the duties and customs on this side for exportation; but, being now told that his religion will not hinder the confiscation of his goods, he goes first to London himself before he will hazard his effects.” The postscript adds, “Here is a Protestant haberdasher in the same trouble about carrying his effects. Pray instruct me what to say to such people upon the like occasions. I assure you it is worth a serious consideration, for if you refuse to take substantial tradesmen with their ware, they will go into Holland; so that they will get the rich merchants, and we only the poor ones.”
In my Historical Introduction it has been recorded that leave was granted to refugees to come “with their ware.” The linen-draper was Bonhomme, of whom Savile said, “This man will bee able alsoe to give you some lights into the method of bringing the manufacture of sayle cloathe into England.” Professor Weiss informs us, “In 1681 the company of elders and deacons of the French Church in Threadneedle Street [London] supplied funds for the establishment of a linen-manufactory at Ipswich, where Charles II. had permitted a great number of refugees to found a colony. Bonhomme, one of the most skilful manufacturers of linen cloth in Paris, spread its manufacture in England, and at the same time taught the English
