The Huguenot Society

The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in 1885, 200 years after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and drove a quarter of a million French Protestants abroad, to countries where they could practise their religion in peace. The French Calvinists were nicknamed Huguenots for some obscure reason. About 40,000 to 50,000 of them came to England. Others went to Holland, Germany and Switzerland, and some ended up as far away as America and South Africa. Earlier groups of Huguenots had been coming over the Channel since about 1550, and families went on arriving well into the eighteenth century. Some of them were skilled craftsmen and they brought with them the arts and trade secrets of the most advanced and civilised country in Europe. Others were merchants, clergymen and soldiers. William of Orange brought Huguenot regiments with him in 1688.