Who Do You Think You Are - Derek Jacobi 27th Aug

[kiterunner]

9 p.m. on BBC1, and repeated next Tuesday at 11:30 p.m.

[Lindsay]

Well, I found that really interesting - especially the description of Digby Walk, as my family lived there for several decades.

I would have been interested to see how they slipped down the social scale to end up in the east end, though.

[ElizabethHerts]

Absolutely fascinating. Such a shame they didn't find time to explain where they found all the documents and also how the family fell into poverty.

The will of Joseph Delaplaigne makes interesting reading as he mentions a brother and nephew as well as his wife and son:

http://interactive.ancestry.co.uk/51...1_310732-00037

[Olde Crone]

I enjoyed that, there was a lot there I didn't know....but I started to nod off towards the end. Too long on one ancestor, again. I also felt that I had seen the Huguenot silk weavers house in Spitalfields before.......

I was interested in the Chancery Court records as they are notoriously difficult to find.

OC

[kiterunner]

Episode synopsis

Sir Derek Jacobi lives in North London with his partner Richard. His father [B]Alfred Jacobi died at the age of 90 and his mother Daisy Masters at the age of 70. Derek was born in East London in 1938. He was an only child and he studied history at Cambridge University. His father's family were bootmakers, originally from Germany. Derek's mother came from a poor family in Hackney, her grandmother's name being Salome Laplain (mother of Derek's grandmother Haida Frost.

Derek met an historian who showed him Salome's birth certificate from 1859, giving her father's name as Armand Laplain. On the 1841 census Armand is shown as a brazier, age 15, with his parents and siblings.

An application for poor relief from Bethnal Green dated 1847 showed Armand as a wood cutter age 25, living at 5 Digby Walk. A description of Digby Walk from that time shows that there were very bad living conditions there.

On the 1891 census Armand's widowed sister Hannah Sudbury was at the French Hospital in Hackney. Her application to the French Hospital, which was for poor French Huguenots and their descendants, stated that she was descended from Joseph De Laplaign who "refuged" in 1702. Joseph was Derek's 6xg-grandfather.


Derek went to a recreated Huguenot weavers' house in Spitalfields to learn more about the Huguenots. Most of them arrived in England some years before Joseph, and Derek was told that Joseph was probably higher class than the weavers going by his surname.

Derek went to Paris and visited the Protestant Historical Society of Paris. He was shown some references to Joseph that were found in the French Archives, including a listing of individuals who swore an oath in Bordeau in 1667. It turned out that Joseph was a lawyer and financier who raised money for King Louis XIV, and was born about 1638-9. Another document showed Joseph's crest, a hound chasing a stag.

Protestants were persecuted during Louis XIV's reign, and Derek was told that Joseph presumably claimed to have converted to Catholicism. Documents from 1699 showed that he was still in office, counsellor to the king, at that time, and there was no record found of him marrying and having children. The Dictionary of Protestant Families in Bordeaux showed that he was arrested as a Protestant in 1701 and imprisoned in the Chateau de Loche. Derek visited the Chateau to see what it was like inside, and was shown a book about the prison which said that in 1702 Joseph managed to escape abroad.

Joseph went to Lincolns Inn in London and was shown the records of a Chancery case from 1703 where Joseph tried to reclaim a total of 13,500 livres (the equivalent of £80,000 today) that he said he had sent to a single woman called Jane de Beynack who had escaped to England in 1690, to keep for him. Her response said that Joseph had asked her to marry him before she came to England, but that when he arrived, he had her arrested for debt and she had been held in a debtors' prison for 4 months. There was no record of the outcome of the case.

Derek went to Soho Square, to the last surviving Huguenot church in Soho, the area where the Huguenot financiers were based. He was shown a marriage licence allegation from 30th Jul 1708, which said that Joseph Laplaigne of St Giles in the Fields, age 70, intended to marry Salome Labastide of the same parish, age 25, a spinster.

Derek was shown a coat of arms made up of Joseph's crest on one side and what was thought to be the Labastide crest in the other half, with a phoenix above and the motto "Je meurs pour revivre" below. He was also shown the baptism record of Guillaume de la Plaigne dated 28th May 1709, with the godparents being the Duke of Devonshire and Marie de la Bastide. One of the witnesses was Salome's brother Armand de la Bastide. Derek was shown Joseph's will which was proved in Jan 1710.

An accouncement in Reid's Weekly Journal of 6 Mar 1736 showed that the Rev Mr Laplain (Guillaume / William), chaplain to the Duke of Devonshire and vicar of Wrockwardine in Shropshire, had married Mrs Sandford, a gentlewoman. William had studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Derek was shown a letter from Jean de la Bastide, the father of Salome and Armand, dated Sep 1691, promising Armand's services to King William III. Derek visited Kensington Palace, which was William III's residence, where he was told that Jean and Armand were professional soldiers who fought for Protestant causes and helped William and Mary to secure the throne. Lieut Armand De La Bastide was listed in records from 1690 of soldiers who were sent to Ireland to fight in the Battle of the Boyne. Naturalisation records from 1691 included Armand, son of Colonel John De La Bastide, and a record from 1705 showed that Armand was promoted to Guidon - the standard-bearer of the 3rd Regiment of Horse Guards.

[ElizabethHerts]

Armand Laplain's baptism is on FMP:

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/recor...2fbap%2f170029

First name(s) Armand
Last name Laplain
Birth year 1823
Birth date 25 Feb 1823
Baptism year 1823
Baptism date 23 Mar 1823
Place Derby
Denomination New Jerusalemite Swedenborgian
Father's first name(s) Josh
Mother's first name(s) Mary
County Derbyshire
Country England
Archive reference TNA/RG/4/119
Description DERBYSHIRE: Derby, King Street (New Jerusalemites): Births & Baptisms
Record set England & Wales Non-conformist births and baptisms

[Sue from Southend]

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

I enjoyed that, there was a lot there I didn't know....but I started to nod off towards the end. Too long on one ancestor, again. I also felt that I had seen the Huguenot silk weavers house in Spitalfields before.......

I was interested in the Chancery Court records as they are notoriously difficult to find.

OC

They did "poor Huguenots" in one of the very early episodes with Barbara Windsor and may well have visited the silk weavers house then. It also explains why they didn't go into depth with the later generations this time.

I really enjoyed it too - learnt a lot about the Huguenots but wish they would elaborate on where they found their records! I'd love to find out more about the lives of my Huguenot ancestors in France although I suspect that they won't be as well documented as Derek's!

[kiterunner]

I enjoyed this episode, but there were a few howlers from the historians which made me wince:

- Saying that although Armand was only 15 on the 1841 census, he was working as a brazier. Age 15 on that census meant age 15-19 and Armand was actually 18, going by the baptism that Elizabeth has found.

- Saying that Joseph's death in Jan 1710 was 8 months after Guillaume's baptism in May 1709 - unless the date of death has been adjusted, this is wrong as Jan 1710 would be 20 months after May 1709. Can anyone find the record of this to check, please?

- Saying that Derek was entitled to use Joseph's coat of arms.

[ElizabethHerts]

Rev. William Laplain's will is also on Ancestry, as is his wife's.

Both make interesting reading.

[kiterunner]

Oh yes, and Derek assuming that Joseph was in the right and Jane in the wrong in that Chancery Case! How does he know? I wasn't as convinced as he was of Joseph's "bravery" either; it seemed to me that Joseph had taken the easier path?