Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/417

 , Esq., he left three sons, Rev. John Chancourt Girardot, proprietor of Car-Colston Hall, Nottinghamshire (born 1798), Lieut.-Colonel Charles Andre Girardot, and Rev. William Lewis Girardot. I observe in the Army List Major-General George Charles Girardot, born 1841.  . — This Norman family are known as refugees in Jersey, but when scattered by the Revocation Edict, some of them settled in London, as is evident from the French Church Baptismal Registers. Abraham Gosset, of London, married Judith Ravenel in or before 1707; their children were Abraham (born 1708), Isaac (born 1709), and Jean Pierre (born 1711); Matthieu Gosset was a sponsor at the first baptism. In the next generation, Mr. Gedeon Gosset, of London, married Anne Buisset in or before 1742, and had two sons, Gedeon (born 1743), and Pierre (born 1744). Mr. Isaac Gosset and Françoise, his wife, had Jeanne Magdelaine (born 1743), Isaac (born 1745), Abraham (born 1748), and Francoise (born 1749).

I abridge from Burke’s “Landed Gentry” a memoir of the Jersey refugee family. John Gosset (died in 1712) was the father of John Gosset, who married Susan D’Allain, and left two sons; his younger son, Isaac, a subsequent chapter is concerned with. The elder son was Abraham, father of Matthew Gosset of Bagot, whose eldest son was another Matthew Gosset, Esq. of Bagot, Jersey, and of Connaught Square, London, Vice-Comes of the Island of Jersey (died 1843); the second wife of the younger Matthew was Grace, daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart., and her sons were Colonel William Matthew Gosset of the Royal Engineers, Admiral Henry Gosset, and Arthur Gosset, Esq. of Eltham House, Kent, the head of the family (born 1800, father of Arthur Wellesley Gosset and other children. There are two branches founded by Matthew Gosset, senior, by his second wife, Margaret Durell. (1.) Sir William Gosset, C.B., late Sergeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons (died 1848), was the father of Captain Sir Ralph Allen Gosset, K.C.B., also late Sergeant-at-Arms (died 1885), father of Colonel Butler Gosset. (2.) Major John Noah Gosset is the father of Colonel William O’Driscoll Gosset of the Royal Engineers. Another branch was founded by Matthew Gosset, junior, who by his third wife, Laura Honor Cotton, was father of George Bagot Gosset, Esq. (died 1840).  . — “This family,” says the Gentleman’s Magazine, “came originally from the south of France, the first ancestor in England having been one of the numerous Protestant gentlemen who were driven to find an asylum here from the folly and bigotry of their own Government, on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. A branch of the family still exists in France, one of the members of which was the amiable and accomplished Madame Harenc, of whom mention is made in the memoirs of Baron Grimm.” Benjamin Harenc lived in London in the middle of last century, where he was well known in literary and fashionable society, and his house was the resort of the most distinguished foreign residents. He was elected a Director of the French Hospital in 1765. He bought the estate and mansion of Footscray Place, in Kent, in 1773, and resided there till his death. He also bought land in the county of Kerry. Benjamin, his son, took a degree at Cambridge, with honours, being one of the Wranglers of the year 1803. In 1804 he married Sophia Caroline, daughter of Joseph Berens, Esq. of Kevington. He was a prominent County Magistrate and Justice of the Peace, Commander of the Chislehurst troop of Yeomanry Cavalry, a constant visitor of the County Gaol at Maidstone, founder of National Schools for the parishes of Footscray and Chislehurst, founder of the Bromley Savings’ Bank, and first Secretary of the District Branch of the Christian Knowledge Society. “Among the latest of the benevolent objects to which his attention was directed, was the formation of a Society supported by voluntary subscriptions for the assistance and support of discharged prisoners, with a view of facilitating their return to habits of industry, by affording them the means of communicating with their friends, and by relieving them from that feeling of destitution and abandonment which had been found in too many instances to drive them to a repetition of crime.” He sold Footscray Place to Lord Bexley in 1821, and died at Seven Oaks at the early age of forty-five, on 13th September 1825. His death was hastened by his involving himself in great labour and anxiety, by accepting shares, and the provisional management of a scheme for establishing Steam Communication with America from the western coast of Ireland, in the neighbourhood of his county Kerry estate. He was buried amidst evident and universal lamentation, in the family vault under Footscray Church. Having ceased to hold land, his descendants are not recorded in books of reference; but I observe the names of (1.) Lieut.-General Archibald Richard Harenc, who formerly commanded the 53rd Foot. He served with the 97th in India, and was at the siege and capture of Lucknow. His