{"id":3951,"date":"2025-08-26T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=3951"},"modified":"2025-08-26T07:39:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T07:39:34","slug":"will-of-the-month-a-huguenot-refugee-and-master-weaver-of-stepney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2025\/08\/26\/will-of-the-month-a-huguenot-refugee-and-master-weaver-of-stepney\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: A Huguenot Refugee and \u2018Master Weaver of Stepney\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month\u2019s post explores the will of Daniel Godfroy, a Huguenot and \u2018Master Weaver of Stepney\u2019, who died in 1726 and whose will was \u2018Translated from the French\u2019.[1]<\/a> Stepney, an ancient parish which included the Spitalfields area, was the heart of the London Huguenot community in the early eighteenth century: indeed some Londoners \u2018complained that French was the only language they heard in the area\u2019.[2]<\/a> Godfroy\u2019s will provides a snapshot of the workings of this large but also tight-knit community: it includes money left to the local French church and congregational charities, references to the characteristically Huguenot trades of silk-weaving, silversmithing, and clock-making, and bequests given mainly to people with identifiably French names.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Master Weavers would have lived in large townhouses like the ones in Fournier Street in Spitalfields. https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:25_to_41_Fournier_Street,_Spitalfields_(01).jpg<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Money to \u2018the ffrench Church\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of Stepney\u2019s Huguenots arrived in the late seventeenth century, following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which forced thousands of Protestants to flee France as refugees. It has been suggested that by 1700, around 5% of London\u2019s population of 575,000 was Huguenot, and there were nine French places of worship in Spitalfields alone.[3]<\/a> Twenty-five years later, the continued strength of the community in this area is tangible through the people and institutions that Godfroy mentioned in his will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfroy, a \u2018Master Weaver\u2019, would have been a wealthy businessman who employed others in the weaving trade, and who may have lived in a large townhouse like those on Fournier Street in Spitalfields (above). He left \u2018to the Elders and Deacons of the ffrench Church in threedneedle Street London the Sume of ten pounds Sterling for the use of the poor\u2019.[4]<\/a> Donating to the poor of a particular congregation, who would have been first- or second-generation refugees, is linked to the tradition of providing for the poor of the testator\u2019s local parish. The Threadneedle Street church, in the City of London, was the first French church to be established in London. It followed a French Calvinist liturgy, as opposed to the other large French church at the Savoy, in London\u2019s West End, which used a French translation of the English liturgy.[5]<\/a> In the 1680s, the Threadneedle Street church had faced increasing pressure to conform to the Church of England, but this eased following fears that the local wealthy Huguenot merchants and craftsmen would move from the area.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Design for woven silk from the ‘Leman Album’, pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper, possibly by James Leman, 1734. James Leman was a second-generation Huguenot refugee, and silk weaver and designer who was living and working in Spitalfields at the same time as Godfroy. \u00a0https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O65210\/design-leman-james\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfroy also bequeathed \u2018ffifty pounds to the Deacons of the said ffrench Church in threed needle Street London towards the maintaining of the School of their hospital in Spittlesfields\u2019. The charity school educated children up until the age of fourteen, at which point they would be apprenticed to local craftsmen, like the \u2018Master Weaver\u2019 testator himself.[7]<\/a> Godfroy\u2019s charitable bequests made provisions for the maintenance and future of the east London Huguenot community and its signature trades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tools \u2018belonging to a Weavers\u2019 Trade\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huguenot silk-weavers moved to Stepney in large numbers, while those associated with the clock-making and silversmithing trades tended to live and set up shop in Soho.[8]<\/a> Godfroy\u2019s will provides evidence of his connections with the weavers he lived and worked alongside. He named as one of the executors of the will of \u2018Mathew Benoist master Weaver living at the Artillery\u2019. The Artillery Lane area of Spitalfields had a large French population and was also the location of the Huguenot soup kitchen, an area, like many pockets of London, where rich and poor lived alongside each other.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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The Master Weaver is pictured on the extreme right of this engraving by William Hogarth – Industry and Idleness, Plate 1; The Fellow ‘Prentices at their Looms (1747) <\/em>https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:William_Hogarth_-_Industry_and_Idleness,_Plate_1;_The_Fellow_%27Prentices_at_their_Looms.png#\/media\/File:William_Hogarth_-_Industry_and_Idleness,_Plate_1;_The_Fellow_’Prentices_at_their_Looms.png<\/em><\/a> – \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfroy left to his stepson \u2018all the Loomes and Harnesses belonging to a Weavers\u2019 Trade together with the Scales and weights a great and a Smal press [perhaps a clothes press or cupboard] a great Trunk\u2019. As a \u2018Master Weaver\u2019 who presumably took pride in his work, there was perhaps sentimentality as well as practicality in bequeathing the tools of his trade. References to occupational identities appear frequently in the wills that our project examines, and indeed, in a previous post<\/a>, we discussed the professional pride of a Gloucester capmaker who left a fellow capmaker \u2018the beste cappe of my makyng\u2019. For Huguenots, so closely associated with particular occupations, the relationship between trade, craftsmanship, and community identity was perhaps even more closely interlinked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a similar manner to his donation to the French school, Godfroy\u2019s bequest of the tools of his trade both provided a living for a younger family member and also secured the future of a skilled craft. He also discussed another young stepson, John Amery, who he had \u2018put to a Trade\u2019, and affirmed \u2018I have promised to Clothe him during his apprenticeship\u2019. Perhaps it is unsurprising that clothes played a prominent role in this silk-weaver\u2019s will. Godfroy did not only provide money for his stepson to be provided with clothes, but also directly left him \u2018all my Clothes and Linnen for my use\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Bracket Clock, Made in London, the movement signed ‘Paulet London’ (active about 1710). The distinctly Continental style of his clocks and his French name suggest that he was a Huguenot. https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O77617\/bracket-clock-paulet\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The object and its maker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfroy\u2019s will also mentioned other objects associated with Huguenot craftsmanship, namely the trades of silversmithing and clock- or watchmaking. His stepson Samuel Picard received \u2018a Silver Tankard which had been bought by my Wife his Mother\u2019, while Samuel\u2019s brother Isaac received \u2018my Silver Watch and a Clock of Robins\u2019 making\u2019. This refers to a particular named craftsman, possibly a relative of Robert Robin, a later Parisian clockmaker who worked and found fame in the later eighteenth century. In any case, the name of the maker carried value in Godfroy\u2019s mind, and he was keen to set down its provenance in writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfroy made his will around forty years after the main wave of Huguenot migration to east London. Judging by his professional seniority, and the fact that he had been married twice with several stepchildren, we can infer that he was an older man, and probably a first-generation \u00e9migr\u00e9. This would explain why his will was written in French, and why both its witnesses and the Notary Public who drafted it, Isaac Delpeech or Delpech, were also Huguenot. His will provides evidence of a refugee who had arrived in London and reached the top of his craft, and indeed had been among the generation that had established Spitalfields as the centre of silk-weaving in the face of some early hostility from English weavers.[10]<\/a> Godfroy was wealthy, he employed others, and he left money for the poor of the French community and to ensure the future of its people and its trades. Aside from monetary bequests, most of the objects mentioned were associated with characteristic Huguenot industries: the weaver\u2019s loom, harnesses, scales, weights, and other tools, a silver tankard, a silver watch, and a clock made by an esteemed maker. While many wills discussed objects that had sentimental value, or left work tools to children or young people, it is striking to read a document where community, identity, and craftsmanship are so closely intertwined.<\/p>\n\n\n