# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 13 - Section XVIII

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XVIII. The Messieurs Le Keux.
These most eminent engravers sprang from Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Le Keux, of Spitalfields (born 1697, died 1723), buried at Whitechapel. John and Henry Le Keux were his great-grandsons, their grandfather being William, of Hayes, Middlesex (born 1697, died 1781)> buried at Putney, and their father being Peter, born at Limpsfield, in Surrey, 12th May 1746, died 19th March 1836, and buried at Ingatestone, Essex. According to Mr. Thorne, this worthy nonagenarian was a pewterer.
John Le Keux was born 4th June 1783, and baptized at St. Botolph’s. As a boy, he did his father’s errands, and began to make drawings upon quart pots. This led to his being permitted to devote himself to the art of engraving. He became a pupil of Basire, and after fulfilling his apprenticeship, he engraved plates for Brewer’s Antiquities. In 1818 he was engaged by John Britton. He engraved about four hundred plates for Britton’s Architectural and Cathedral Antiquities, and about fifty ​for Pugin’s Architectural Antiquities of Normandy. His engravings also adorn the volumes of Neale’s “Westminster Abbey and Churches of England,” and Ingram’s “Memorials of Oxford and Cambridge.” He was held in immense and well-merited reputation. He married, in 1809, Sarah Sophia, daughter of John Lingard (she survived till 1871), and died 1st April 1846, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. He left, with other children, a son, John Henry Le Keux, also an engraver.
Henry Le Keux, brother of John, was born 13th June 1787, and baptized at St. Dunstan’s, Stepney. He also became a pupil of Basire. And as an engraver, he was considered quite equal to his brother. His engravings are to be found in Blore’s “Monumental Antiquities,” Neale’s “Westminster Abbey,” Rogers’ Poems, Whitaker’s “Richmondshire,” and Scott’s Poems and “Provincial Antiquities,” and also in the Annuals. For this catalogue I am indebted to Mr. Thorne. In addition to it, I may mention the facts, that for his large plate of Venice (after Prout) he received 760 guineas; for plates in the beautiful Annuals, with which our boyhood was favoured, he received large prices ranging from 100 to 180 guineas. For these facts concerning him I am indebted to The Register for 1869 (vol. i., p. 132); and on the same authority, I note that “more than thirty years ago he gave up engraving, and retired to Bocking, in Essex, being engaged by the firm of Samuel Courtauld & Co., crape manufacturers, for the chemical and scientific department, and he continued in that employment until the age of eighty-one, his health failing a short time before his death.” He died 3d October 1868, and was buried at Halstead, in Essex.
John Henry Le Keux, son of John Le Keux and Sara Sophia Lingard, was born 23d March 181 2, and baptised at St. Pancras. As an engraver, he has worthily represented his father and uncle. His style is less minute but more spirited. His plates occur in Ruskin’s Modern Painters and Stones of Venice, and in various modern architectural works, annuals, and costly serial publications. He married, first, at Harmondsworth (in 1838), Helen, daughter of Richard Tillyer, and secondly, at Shincliffe (in 1836), Francis, youngest daughter of George Andrews, of the city of Durham, in which city he is now spending the evening of his life.