# Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 11 - Section III

Layout 2
III. Courtauld.
The Courtauld family was cradled in the Province of Saintonge. Its early members, settled in England, are described as merchants, goldsmiths, and jewellers. But ultimately the family became eminent in the silk-manufacture, and introduced silk-tlirozviiig into the county of Essex, where they built throwing-mills. The sites of their mills were Pebmarsh and Braintree. They are now represented by the opulent firm of Samuel Courtauld & Co., crape-manufacturers, of Halstead, Braintree, and Booking.
Colonel Chester, with his usual generosity, furnished me with a Memoir of this family, the result of researches in the Isle of Oleron, and of most persevering searches in English archives. The following details are extracted from it.
Pierre Courtauld was the first of his family who settled at St. Pierre, in the Isle of Oleron. Official papers prove him to have become the principal merchant, and, through successful industry, the monopolist of the trade and manufactures of the island. His first wife was Judith Gibaud, the mother of his children. [Before 19th September 1686, he had married a second wife, Anne Cagna; this lady made her will on 19th August 1689, and in it she says:— “First, I recommend my soul to God the Father Almighty, who hears this prayer for the sake of His dear Son my Saviour Jesus Christ, who has shed His precious blood upon the cross for our sins, to have pity and compassion upon it, and at its departure from the body to receive it graciously into His holy paradise in the ranks of the faithful, to the enjoyment of eternal life.”]
The children of Pierre Courtauld and Judith Gibaud were two sons, Augustine and Pierre, and a daughter, Judith, wife of Gedeon Gannet. Of these, only Augustine came to England as a refugee.
Various documents, signed by the Courtaulds, indicate the superior position and culture of their family. Clerks, notaries, and official persons, took great liberties with their surname spelling it in every imaginable way, Cortald, Cortauld, Courtald, Courtaud, Courtault, Courtaut, Courtaux, Courteau, Courtcauld, Courteault, Courthould, Courfauld, Courtland. “But whenever the actual signatures of the Courtaulds themselves have been obtained, the orthography has been, without a single exception, Courtauld, and the handwriting is invariably and remarkably excellent.”
Augustine Courtauld made his will on the 5th September 1706; it was written in French, and an English translation was made for the Probate Court. He is described as “Mr. Augustine Courtauld, born in St. Peter in the Isle of Oleron, in France, and then residing in the parish of St. Anne in Soho, in the Liberty of Westminster.” He made a formal declaration that he had been twice married, first to Julia Giron, by whom he had one son, Augustine; and that by his second wife, Esther (still living), [she survived him until May 1732] he had also one son, Peter. His will directs that his wife and two sons shall each have one-third of his “inheritance,” his wife to be executrix for Peter; while for the elder son, Augustine, the testator’s brother, Pierre Courtauld, was to be executor. He also mentions his estate in France; “for the estate in France, he giveth it to his two children for to share them by equal parts and portions.”
​There are very distinct family traditions, narrating the great difficulties experienced by the refugee in escaping from France, and declaring that his younger brother remained in France as a New Catholic, and by royal permission appropriated the above-mentioned estate, which was considerable. The refugee’s will requiring Pierre’s consent to marriages, contracted before the age of twenty-five by his nephews the testator’s sons, it is maintained that Pierre died before 1709, the year in which young Peter married with the consent of his mother only. It is certain that young Augustine never got his French estate; at his death in 1751 he left mourning rings “to his cousins Peter and Augustine Courtauld,” who are unknown to the registers in England, but were, of course, Pierre’s descendants, and probably denizens of France, conformists to Romanism.
The first evidence of the residence in England of Augustine Courtauld, senior, is the record of his second marriage, which took place on the 10th March 1688-9, in the Glasshouse Street French Church, London. The circumstance that he often appears in the registers after this date, either as a godfather or as a witness, but never before it, implies that he had recently arrived in England. He is described as of the Province of St. Onge, and his wife is called Esther Potier of La Rochelle. On the 19th January 1689-90 was baptized Peter, son of Augustine Courtauld of the Isle d’Oleron in St. Onge, merchant, and Esther Potier. Peter left no noteworthy descendants, though he had many children by his wife, Judith Pantin, whom he married in the Church of Le Tabernacle, 5th February 1708-9, the marriage allegation being made by Isaiah Pantin, of the parish of St. James’s, Westminster, goldsmith.
The Courtaulds, as a prominent family in their adopted kingdom, descend from Augustine, the son of Augustine by Julia Giron, the refugee’s first wife, who died in France. The refugee himself died, aged about forty-five only, in London, and was buried at St. Anne’s, Soho, on the 20th September 1706; his will was proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Middlesex on the 5th October, by his widow and by his brother, who paid a visit to this country for that purpose. As to Augustine, the second, it is probable that the Isle d’Oleron was the place of his birth, and that he was brought over as a refugee infant; the date of his birth was 1686. He married Anne Bardin of Chelsea, but, as the registers of the Chelsea French Church have been lost, the memory of this and several other domestic dates has been lost also. He had eight children, and in taking the legal steps for the marriage of one of his daughters he declared himself to be forty-three years of age on the 21st May 1729. He died in 1751, aged sixty-five; his wife and himself died in the same year, she being buried on the 26th March, and he on the 14th April, both in the parish churchyard of Chelsea. He was a goldsmith, and he left behind him a lucrative trade, £2000 in portions of £400 each to his surviving children, small bequests to other persons, including his late brother’s children, mourning rings to relatives and friends, including a Mr. Peter Roubeleau [or Riboleau], and £10 for the poor of the French Church in Orange Street, commonly called Leicester-Fields Church. This was his place of worship during the greater part of his married life, his house being in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. His surviving children were Anne, wife of John Jacob; Esther, wife of Stephen Goujon; Judith (unmarried); Augustine (born 1718); and Samuel (born 10th September 1720.)
Augustine Courtauld, the third, was baptised on the 24th July 1718, his sponsors being Jacob de Milon and Jane Riboleau. He married on 19th March 1748-9, a cousin, Jane Bardin, daughter of John Bardin, by Renée Aveline, his wife. His children were two daughters, and the male line was continued by his brother Samuel.
Samuel Courtauld was baptised on the 13th September 1720; his sponsors were Samuel Aveline and Catherine Blanchard. On 31st August 1749 he married a daughter of Peter Ogier, silkweaver, formerly of Poitou, by his wife, Catherine Rabaud, Louisa Perina Ogier, who, like her eight brothers and sisters, inherited £250 on her father’s death in 1740. After his father’s death Samuel Courtauld removed to the parish of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, and to the French Church of Threadncedle Street; he died in 1765. In his Will he describes himself as a jeweller. His eldest son, Augustine, died in infancy. The second, Samuel (born 1752, died 1821), became a prosperous merchant in the State of Delaware in America. Several other children died either young or unmarried, of whom the youngest was Sophia (born 1763, died 1850). Catherine, the sixth child and third daughter (born 1760, died 1826), had as sponsors Mr. Giles Godin and Mrs. Francis Catherine Merzeau (née Ogier), and was ​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.