Randolph Vigne – författare

The French Hospital for poor French Protestants and their descendants residing in Great Britain was incorporated in 1718. Affectionately known as La Providence, it was one of the earliest foundations to cater for London's needy immigrants, and one of the first in Britain to provide sympathetic care for the mentally ill. This book charts the hospital's history from its early days in Finsbury to its present location in the cathedral city of Rochester, Kent, where it provides sheltered housing for elderly people of Huguenot descent. Over the years many distinguished Huguenot settlers or their descendants have been associated with the hospital, among them the soldiers Henri, Earl of Galway, and John, Earl Ligonier, the lawyer Sir Samuel Romilly and the archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard. The ivory carver David Le Marchand died there in 1726. The architect Robert Lewis Roumieu designed the spectacular new building in Victoria Park, Hackney, which was the French Hospital's home from the late 1860s to the early 1940s. More than a hundred new photographs of the hospital's collections of paintings, engravings, silver, furniture and memorabilia provide a unique visual record.Portraits featured include the eighteenth-century Huguenot merchants Jean-Henri Guinand and Pierre Ogier. The early hospital records held at the Huguenot Library include tradesmen's bills, portraits of inmates and hospital staff. An eighteenth-century steward's diary records that one inmate hid over half a hundredweight of the hospital's coal supply under her bed. Heraldic shields and book-plates record some of the principal Huguenot families who have served as directors, and a transcription of the 1742 inventory compiled in French lends historical colour. This richly illustrated account will appeal to a wide audience including social and art historians and all who are interested in Huguenot heritage.

Scholars from France and from countries of the Huguenot Refuge examine the situation of French Protestants before and after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in France and in the countries to which many of them fled during the great exodus which followed the Edict of Fontainebleau. Covering a period from the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the volume examines aspects of life in France, from the debate on church unity to funeral customs, but its primary focus is on departure from France and its consequences -- both before and after the Revocation. It offers insights into individuals and groups, from grandees such as Henri de Ruvigny, depute general and later Earl of Galway, to converted Catholic priests and from businessmen and communities choosing their destination for economic as well as religious reasons, to women and children moving across European frontiers or groups seeking refuge in the islands of the Indian Ocean. The information-gathering activities of the French authorities and the reception of problematic groups such as the Camisard prophets among exile communities are examined, as well as the significant contributions which Huguenots began to make, in a variety of domains, to the countries in which they had settled. The refugees were extremely interested in the history of their diaspora and of the individuals of which it was composed, and this theme too is explored. Finally, the Napoleonic period brought some of the refugees up against France in a more immediate way, raising further questions of identity and aspiration for the Huguenot community in Germany.

Scholars from France and from countries of the Huguenot Refuge examine the situation of French Protestants before and after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in France and in the countries to which many of them fled during the great exodus which followed the Edict of Fontainebleau. Covering a period from the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the volume examines aspects of life in France, from the debate on church unity to funeral customs, but its primary focus is on departure from France and its consequences -- both before and after the Revocation. It offers insights into individuals and groups, from grandees such as Henri de Ruvigny, depute general and later Earl of Galway, to converted Catholic priests and from businessmen and communities choosing their destination for economic as well as religious reasons, to women and children moving across European frontiers or groups seeking refuge in the islands of the Indian Ocean. The information-gathering activities of the French authorities and the reception of problematic groups such as the Camisard prophets among exile communities are examined, as well as the significant contributions which Huguenots began to make, in a variety of domains, to the countries in which they had settled. The refugees were extremely interested in the history of their diaspora and of the individuals of which it was composed, and this theme too is explored. Finally, the Napoleonic period brought some of the refugees up against France in a more immediate way, raising further questions of identity and aspiration for the Huguenot community in Germany.

Between 1550 and 1750 tens of thousands of immigrants, many of them religious refugees escaping persecution on the Continent, settled in Britain and its colonies, and in Ireland. They brought with them their formidable energies and talents and quickly assimilated themselves into the host society. The essays range from general considerations of trends towards integration in the immigrant communities to detailed case-studies of the movement into British society of individual immigrants; from studies of popular attitudes and government policy towards the newcomers to examinations of relations within the immigrant communities themselves and their structures for self-sufficiency. The immigrants' contributions to art, scholarship, manufacturing, theology and politics are also explored.