1
Staffordshire / Re: Brick Walls in Rugeley - John Harvey
« on: Thursday 03 June 10 00:57 BST (UK) »
Thanks for this. I'm from William (b. 1805) and Hannah (b. 1810) Harvey through their daughter Susannah who moved to the States shorty after marrying Samuel Devall.
Is their any indication that the other hatters might have been huguenots? We have an old Devall family story that a william Devall was a French duke who escaped the Revolution and found refuge with Sir Charles Wolseley. We've disproved that and can take the family back in England further than 1789, but wondered if the family came over earlier when huguenots fled persecution and apparently took most of the French hat making industry with them. While I doubt that any forefather was a duke, they might have been associated with the household of one of the huguenots dukes and an earlier Sir Charles Wolseley, who was on Oliver Cromwell's inner circle and so would have known huguenots, might have helped them.
Is their any indication that the other hatters might have been huguenots? We have an old Devall family story that a william Devall was a French duke who escaped the Revolution and found refuge with Sir Charles Wolseley. We've disproved that and can take the family back in England further than 1789, but wondered if the family came over earlier when huguenots fled persecution and apparently took most of the French hat making industry with them. While I doubt that any forefather was a duke, they might have been associated with the household of one of the huguenots dukes and an earlier Sir Charles Wolseley, who was on Oliver Cromwell's inner circle and so would have known huguenots, might have helped them.