French Settlers in Thorney
Dorothy Halfhide
Drainage work (later in 1800's)
Copy right © Trustees of Ely Museum
Under Charles I, Oliver Cromwell and Charles II, enormous amounts of work were done to drain low-lying lands which were seen as potentially good for farming. Some of these lands were in the Fens, while others were in marshy parts of Yorkshire.
Protestants moved from places on the Continent because this was a time of religious intolerance. They were discriminated against by Catholics and were not allowed to practice their religion. Groups of people, often called Huguenots, left the north of France, and what is now Belgium, and Settled in England.
Routes from N France to Canterbury, Sandtoft and Thorney
Coming to Thorney offered advantages. Oliver Cromwell Declared that if they bought or farmed lands the newcomers were accounted “free denizens of the Commonwealth”. In a proclamation by Oliver Cromwell, the Settlers were given extra rights, including some tax relief and exemptions from military service overseas for forty years.
Gordon Beharrell & family representing their ancestor Jean Beharrell & family as they would have been in 1677
Thorney Heritage Museum
The Beharrell family
One of the Huguenot families was called Beharrell. Some of them went to Yorkshire where Sir Cornelius Vermuyden had drained new farmland, but the community there of 1000 people suffered assaults. Their property was destroyed and their lands flooded.
Part of the Beharrell family came to Thorney, where the Earl of Bedford offered protection and support to the people who worked on his land.
The French Community in Thorney
Thorney abbey, rebuilt 1638, and used for Christian services in French and English.
A community of around 500 people known as “the French” lived in and around Thorney, and made up perhaps 45% of the householders in the 1660s.
Many of these families had distinctive names, and while they have moved out of the village of Thorney, we receive enquiries about family history from the places their descendants now live – in England, but also in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The Thorney Society
The Thorney Society welcomes enquiries from families linked to the area. We have family trees and copies of registers to help you. The Thorney Society Thorney Heritage Museum The Tankyard Station Road Thorney Peterborough PE6 0SE http://www.thorney-museum.org.uk/
This page was added on 11/12/2009.