The following is copied by me (J.F.P.) from a manuscript in my sister Clara Oakley’s handwriting, dated by her Feb. 21st, 1883. The copy is written on the right hand pages; anything on the left hand pages is an addition, or comment of my own. J.F.P. (Transcribed separately)

1685 Monsieur Porcher^* is said to have been among the number of French Protestants who at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were obliged to fly their country, & with such remains of property as they were able hastily to get together, to seek the shelter of a more liberal government on the hospitable shores of Britain.

^*Most family documents name him as Polchet, but this was an early misspelling which has been replicated down the years. Records now show Porcher.

The notes leave the first paragraph doubtful. Question: Did M. Porcher come to England as a refugee, or were M. and Mme Loy the first of the family who settled in this country? Answer. M. And Mme Porcher came to England in company, & they were refugees who fled from France in great distress, 1685. With an infant daughter entirely dependent on his care, & a considerable sum he had been able to save from the wreck of his fortunes, Monsieur Porcher being a man of energy & talent was not long in finding employment for his money, that by his own skill & industry greatly increased the store he had brought with him from his native country.

As years rolled by, Fortune seemed again to smile on him. His daughter, who was the pride & joy of his heart, grew into a lovely woman, her rare beauty, & the report of her father’s wealth, soon occasioned her to be surrounded by suitors; among these a M. Jamet was the one selected by M. Porcher. The family tradition does not say whether the lady’s inclinations were bent elsewhere, but it is certain that she did not approve of her father’s choice, & tho’ she was at length persuaded, or compelled, to consent to the match, her aversion from it was so great, that on the morning of the wedding day she is said to have thrown herself on her knees before her father, imploring him with many tears to break off the proposed marriage, but M. Porcher remained inexorable. Whether he considered his honour was engaged in the transaction, or was in his heart a tyrant, not having learnt to detest that character from the trials of his youth, we cannot ascertain, but the marriage proceeded, notwithstanding the objections of the bride.

This unhappy connection did not last long. (About 1704?) At the age of 20 Mme Jamet was left a widow with a son¹ and a daughter, who remained under her care. After her husband’s death she returned to her father’s house, for, to the astonishment of all, M. Jamet had died poor. She was treated with much kindness and indulgence. It is said that her father once addressed her thus, - “You were a good girl, my daughter, in marrying first according to my wishes: fear no more interference from me, now you shall choose for yourself.” The beautiful young widow was not long in making her selection; she married secondly a M. Loi, of whom all we know is, that he was a very handsome man, & treated her daughter by the first marriage with the same affection as he shewed to his own². They had two daughters, the elder of whom died in infancy. When the two young ladies grew up, the hand of Mlle Jamet was sought by a Mr. Landon³ who, being a man of large fortune, M. Loi offered no objection to the connexion. But he was not so well satisfied with the favoured admirer of his daughter, a Mr Nash, who we may conclude had not so good a position to offer to his wife, & who laboured under the great disadvantage of not being able to speak French, while M. Loi spoke English very indifferently. At length M. Loi made this drawback on their intercourse an excuse for refusing to accept Mr. Nash as his son in law. The young lovers would not despair. Mr. Nash was clever & industrious, & he resolved to overcome this difficulty. After an absence of some months he returned quite a master of the French language, & again sought the hand of Mlle Loi⁴, but her father still refused his consent to the match, & said he must consider longer about it. At length he could not help observing that his daughter visibly drooped and pined away, & having surprised her one day in the garden walking with an air of great sadness & dejection he addressed her in words to this effect. “I see, my Jenny, that you are ill at ease. Tell me what it is that makes you unhappy.” Whereupon she answered, “Since you ask me, father, the reason of my discontent I must tell you that I consider you have used me ill with regard to Mr. Nash, who has done all you required to make himself accepted as your son in law, & still you refuse to listen to his suit.” “Well”, returned the father, “if this is it, my girl, you shall not be crossed in your inclinations; name the day, & you shall be married!” “Indeed, Sir”, she replied, overwhelmed at once with gratitude & astonishment, “that you shall fix.” “I shall name this day week”, replied her father. “Nay”, she exclaimed, “that is too soon.” “Well, then, fix for yourself”, said her father⁵. Jeanne named that day month, & on that day then fixed she was married to Mr. Nash, & Mlle Jamet to Mr. Landon.

   At the double wedding the brides’ undress lace was at half a guinea a yard, some of which is in my possession. (H.A. Dickinson) The dress lace was a guinea per yard.

   By this marriage⁶ Mrs Nash had two sons, Sebastian & John. Not long after the birth of the latter, her husband died, & after some time of mourning she married, secondly, Monsieur de Brissac, a gentleman of ancient & noble family, claiming the ancient title of Duc de Brissac, to which he had been unable to make good his right, from this rightful (elder) branch of the family, to which he belonged, being Protestant, & having resided in England ever since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

   Three daughters were the offspring of this marriage, Jeanne 1754, who married John Bernard; Elizabeth, born 2 Apr 1756, married John Ware; Frances, born the 22nd of September, 1760, who married Thos. Dickinson, afterwards Capt. R.N. on the 30th June 1781.

   P.A. de Brissac’s wife was Jeanne Nash, née Loy or Loi. P.A. de B. was designer for carpets for a firm in London. Sebastian Loi, his father, was a satin weaver in Spitalfields, and I (E.H.) have heard my mother say that on some occasion, when there was an outbreak against the use of machinery, M. Loy’s workmen (or others) had to smash M. Loy’s machines, but he was so well beloved by them all that before executing their ‘trades union’ orders they carefully cut out the piece of satin brocade then in the loom, & folded it & put it aside unhurt. I have also heard her say that the family as a rule were dark-eyed, but that in every generation there was a blue-eyed fair specimen. “Aunt Child” was one of these, & in after days Fanny Barlow, and now (1903) Harriet Longman.

   Peter Abraham de Brissac claimed legitimate descent from the ancient family of the Contes de Cossé & Ducs de Brissac; indeed it is said that his was the elder branch of the family, & that the title was lost by his ancestor having left France as a refugee, 1685, & the descendants are now unable to establish this by proof, as many important papers have been lost, & the Registrars of his Father’s birth & marriage are not to be found. I have heard old Mrs Dickinson, Frances, née de Brissac, say, that as a child she heard it always affirmed that her father ought to be Duc de Brissac, & that when she was such a little girl as to stand on a footstool at the table in order to see the Family Tree, she was shewn it in her grandmother’s house, where it was then carefully preserved. This Tree has however since been burnt, and nothing but tradition remains to point out the claim of the refugee branch of the family to the ancient & honourable title of de Brissac. The present Duc would be John Bernard, son of Jane Bernard, née de Brissac.

“Your theory as to Jacques de Brissac is a very likely one, & the destruction of all records in the Revolution would account for nothing further being forthcoming. But we certainly have Jewish blood in us, as Jack (Sir John Evans) and Charlie (my brother) testify. And we have de Brissac blood in us, as Janey’s (my sister) portrait at Versailles proves, where she exists to this day as her ancestress Mademoiselle de Brissac … A. Phelps.”

   To this I would add that many, if not most, of my grandmother Dickinson’s (née de Brissac) descendants have a mole on the back of the neck, which is always traditionally referred to in the family as “the de Brissac mole”. I have it, & most of my brothers & sisters, I believe, have it. J.F.P.

   Anne de Brissac, sister of the above mentioned Peter Abraham & Anne de Brissac, married a Mr Child of Bromley, & had no children.

   Mrs Motette, née de Brissac, was aunt of the above mentioned Peter Abraham & Anne de Brissac. She resided at Utrecht with her husband, and lived there after his death. She also was childless. Of the disposal of her fortune the following story is too well remembered by the family. Mrs Child was summoned to attend Mrs Motette who was dangerously ill. She accordingly embarked at Harwich, & went to the old lady, whom she nursed through her last illness. It is said she heard from a stranger of the dangerous state in which she was lying, & how her money & valuables were in the power of servants, for the old lady was reported to be immensely rich. “The richest woman in Utrecht” she was supposed to be. After her death, Mrs Child found a will written in French, by which all the money was settled on her brother P.A. de Brissac & herself. Fearing lest the old lady should have been cajoled into making any other disposition of her property, she burnt & destroyed all the Dutch & German papers she could not read. Some years afterwards a gentleman met Mrs Child in a ballroom, and in the course of conversation informed her, on hearing she was related to the deceased Mrs Motett, that the latter had left £10,000 in her banker’s hands, which the family had failed to claim. Knowing that she had destroyed all their means of obtaining this sum, it is said that Mrs Child fainted on the spot. This money, which was never recovered, is said to have laid the foundation of the great Hope fortune. The rest of the money came to the three daughters of P.A. de Brissac.

   John Dickinson (our great grandfather) was Commander of the Lisbon Packet in 1752. He married an Irish lady, Alice Quin, who was a woman of energy & talent. She exerted herself, whilst residing in Lisbon, with the Portuguese Government, to obtain redress on the injury of a British subject. She escaped on board of her husband’s packet then at Lisbon at the time of the great earthquake. Their house & most of their property in that city was destroyed. A broken silver spoon picked out of the ruins is still possessed by the family, & a pair of well shaped silver candlesticks were fortunately in the ship. Those are still in use at Abbot’s Hill. A miniature portrait of this Capt. Dickinson is also in my (H.A.D.) mother’s possession (Mrs John Dickinson, of Abbot’s Hill, Herts ) set as a brooch⁷.

   There are traditions in the family that our great grandfather, Capt. J.D. ran away from a school in Northumberland to go to sea, having been left to the care of some relations who neglected him, & that thereby lost a large property from the difficulty in proving his identity, & that he took no measures to establish his rights until after his marriage, when his wife persuaded him to look into the matter, & he had collected some papers and documents for that purpose, which were lost in the earthquake at Lisbon, & so ended the family prospects of wealth & greatness.

   An anecdote bordering on the supernatural still survives respecting this worthy pair. Captain J. Dickinson is said to have started on his voyage to Lisbon leaving his wife very ill. On the return voyage he dreamt one night that he saw her on her death bed, & that she expired. Awaking in great agitation he made a note of the circumstance, and hastening home as soon as he landed found that she had died the very night that he had witnessed her death in his dream. John Dickinson, “Capt. D” as he was called, was a man of great energy. He was an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, & was certainly an Officer in the Navy. But we do not know whether he attained the rank of captain. He was in an engagement as one of the officers of a ship named the Brunswick, which conquered “the enemy” under disadvantage.

   This ancestor died in 1781. He was attended in his last illness by a Doctor Dominicetti then in high repute, & his son Thomas, our grandfather, left his ship at Portsmouth to attend his father in his last moments. He left two sons, William, who died without children at Newnham, Gloucestershire, 1828, & Thomas, who was born 1754, & married June 30th, 1781, Frances de Brissac, of the ancient family of the Ducs Cossé de Brissac. He died May 26th, 1828.

In Bromley churchyard Arthur John Evans found the following headstones:

   The name of Theophile De Brissac is mentioned in an official letter from Mr Addison when Secretary of State for Ireland dated from Dublin Castle in 1710.

   I find the name of a M. De Brissac, a Lieutenant in the noble company of Cadets of the Elector, who volunteered at the Siege of Bonn with his company. They behaved most gallantly, of their elite Band of only 50 gentlemen, their Captain was dangerously wounded, Lieut de Brissac was killed, & four cadets taken prisoner - besides four Under-officers and 26 Cadets killed or wounded.

   Again a de Brissac or Brissac of the Company of Cadets de Cornuard distinguished himself in the war in Italy.

   Smiles in the Appendix to his Huguenot Refugees says that “B. de Brissac was a refugee pasteur from Châtellerault who fled from France at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. We find one of his descendants Captain George Brissac a Director of the French hospital in London in 1773.

   The Messrs. Haag “La France Protestante” say that one of the poor refugees a Madame de Brissac became famous at Berlin for her sausages & especially for her black-puddings which continue to be known there as “boudine français”. I find Messrs Émile & Eugène Haag very untrustworthy in their history, & Smiles has stolen & perpetuated their errors! Not that I deny the sausage & black-pudding story, which is not improbable, the unfortunate refugees having to gain a living as best they could, & to do many menial services for themselves.

   The Jeanne de Brisac whose arms I give was wife of Pierre Caumont de Layard.

¹ The son of M. Jamet was named Jacob, and was reputed to be the richest man in the Liberty of Norton Folgate. (but see Note 3).

² When the child was born the father was disappointed at its not being a son, but afterwards he repented, & promised that the next should be loved and welcomed in any case.

³ It was Mr. Landon who was said to be the richest man in the Liberty of Norton Folgate. He afterwards became a stockbroker. Mr. Landon had a son named John.

⁴ He came and preferred his request in French. M. Loi again refused because Mr. Nash could not work at the loom as he did, upon which Mr. Nash, determined not to be discouraged, went and worked like a journeyman, until he was able to produce a piece of satin of excellent workmanship. It was after this second trial of skill that Miss Jenny prevailed, & married him.

⁵ The two brides were married in a piece of rich white satin (fabricated on purpose). They were dressed alike to a pin. The marriages were celebrated in February, & the wedding party walked from Spital Square to Spitalfields Church without a speck on their white shoes. M. Loi lived at 18 Spital Square. The windows of the house were lowered a pane, to please the ladies of the family.

⁶ The eldest son was christened Sebastian, after his grandfather, M. Loi, who was so delighted when he heard of the birth of this grandson, that at first he could not believe the news for joy. He then ordered cold meat & beer to be given to all the poor of the Parish, & kept open house for a week.

⁷ Did Mrs J. Dickinson die at Flushing near Falmouth?

⁸ Note by “F.P.O.”. This ship fought, on the “glorious 1st June” 1794. (See p. 41 J.F.P.) five years after Commander John D’s death.

⁹ This was my grandmother’s grandmother. J.F.P.