"Sam the Boulevardier!" by Robert Hughes

Seen from the rampart of the Arc de Triomphe, Boulogne-Billancourt appears a seamless appendage of Paris, seeping into its loop of the Seine as a well-digested meal into a medical student's night out.

On ground level, this proud township is far from eaten: since at least before the time of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Thomas, it has retained its own identity...

Today, a trip on Metro 'Ligne 9' will take you to Marcel Sembat, where a sign conveniently points you to 'Centre Ville': not however the centre of 'Gay Paree', but the admin area of the municipality, just about 300 metres up the road.

Sam Thomas (Junior) was either a 'remittance man', a 'rep', or both; but definitely the grandfather of Lionel Britton the famous, if eccentric, writer of 'Hunger and Love'.

Sam may have been a bit of a reprobate, or rather a saintly figure in contrast to his old Gradgrind of a factory-owning father; but these five new records from his time in Billancourt can hardly help but contribute to our understanding of his (and our!) family.

Samuel, and for that matter Marie, are described as 'Rentiers'. This term quite clearly defines someone living on a private income, and is surprising given our previous assumption that Samuel was in Paris actively promoting his father's business. In such a case, the appropriate term would surely have been something like 'commercant', 'negociant', etc. Eugene Bédé, who was in Redditch at the time of the 1871 census in Samuel Thomas' household, (and we may reasonably assume a fellow fugitive of the Franco-Prussian War with Samuel and family), was one of the witnesses at the registration of the birth of Henri Thomas in 1869, and for him the term 'negociant' was not apparently too shameful.

We had not previously found a marriage record for Sam and Marie, but it is stated on the birth record of Frank that his parents were married in 1870, in Jersey. So at least three of the children, (including Irza my great-grandmother), were born out of wedlock!

There seems to be a Jersey motif running through the family: Ernest Augustus was on that island for a long time, and Irza made a brief (and presumed disastrous) second marriage to Frank LeBreton, almost certainly himself from Jersey.

From the point of view of Samuel Thomas Senior, could it not have seemed that his eldest son was cheerfully fathering kids with his exotic Belgian fancy-woman, and sending him the bill? There is speculation that Sam Senior was an atheist at heart, and Frederick Charles Guillaume's scrawled tree mentions Jewish origins; whilst there must also have been Welsh forebears. Is it not likely that any mention of a convent, let alone some royal connection, would have been anathema to the old monster, as it seems he could have been an archetypal Victorian Radical?

For family legend has it that Marie-Antoinette married Samuel Thomas against the bitter hostility of her family, who considered him to be 'in trade' and therefore unworthy of her social status. They were said to be have been an aristocratic Flemish family and some kind of cousins of the King of the Belgians. She is said to have leapt over the wall of a convent and married him anyway.

Records obtained at the Hôtel de Ville of Boulogne-Billancourt, (with the kind assistance of a very helpful lady who operated the microfiche and interpreted the tiny script!):

Birth of Henri, (as Jean Henri): 25 Nov 1869, at Rue Napoleon No. 8.

Death of Rose, (born 1871 at Redditch, and not to be confused with Rosa born 1877): 17 Jul 1872, at Rue Nationale No. 17.

Birth of Samuel, (later known as George), 1 Jan 1873, at Rue d'Issy No. 1.

Birth of Ernest Augustus, 11 Oct 1874, at Rue Nationale 17.

Birth of Francis, 3 Jun 1876, at Rue Nationale 10.

Above is an extract from Frank's birth record, showing how Sam and Marie married in Jersey in 1870. Why have three children out of wedlock (with another on the way by the end of 1870), if it could only annoy old Sam Senior, who would possibly have left his eldest son Samuel a fortune if he had so wished? There is only one sensible answer: one or both of Samuel and Marie were already married and had no capacity to make an honest woman/man of each other! At the moment, we don't know (and I have tried to find out through Ancestry.co.uk and Familysearch.org) who was married; but it is a bit like astronomy.

My great-great-uncle Ernest Augustus Thomas (see above) had a book published about Cosmology, set in some schools as a textbook, (according to at least one source). There can be little doubt that Lionel Britton the wacky old writer about the 'Space/Time Continuum' drew heavily on his uncle's inspiration.

The scientists of the Enlightenment worked out the position of the planets, although I wouldn't know where to start! (Oh, and the Aztecs etc. managed it too). By calculation, someone figured out how to find the Planet Pluto, even though no-one had ever seen it even through a telescope.

OK, I don't know how they worked out that Pluto existed at all, let alone where it was; but what I can say is that it is very, very, likely that either Marie Goffin or Samuel Thomas were married before they repaired to Jersey and married each other!

Seen in this light, the story of the snobbish rejection of Samuel by Marie's family may still have been true but not the whole truth or even the principal reason: suppose she was already married and was packed off to a convent to avoid scandal? This is speculation of course, as would be the probable reasons for Samuel Thomas Jr to be in Paris as a kind of exile. If he were a remittance man rather than a hard-working rep. for his father's business, then why was he?

We might keep in mind a record from Ancestry.co.uk's Criminal Records collection (1791-1892). There is a long list of Samuel Thomases, but only one in Worcestershire in the whole period. On 26 July 1865 at Worcester Midsummer Sessions a Samuel Thomas was fined £5 for Assault. Now, this sum was so huge for the time that it would normally be applied to persons of substantial means. Could it be that this related in some way to another family legend about how Samuel Thomas meted out a beating to a young relative who had caused the death of a horse, leading to the lad going into the attic, taking a shotgun and killing himself? This record might have had nothing to do with the legend, which might have been apocryphal anyway; but suppose Samuel Jr. had witnessed an overuse of force by his father, or had himself gone over the top with someone, would not either case be a possible reason for him to go abroad with some assistance from his Dad?

'Marie Antoinette Thomas', by Robert Hughes

Marie Antoinette Goffin was the wife of Samuel Thomas (1835-1912), and the couple were grandparents of Lionel Britton, the eccentric writer who has been the subject of much of Dr Tony Shaw's work.

Legend had it that Marie came from a proud Flemish family in Belgium, who would not accept the young salesman Samuel as a suitable suitor for their daughter, and that she was banished to a convent. From there she is said to have leapt over the wall, married Samuel Thomas and lived happily ever after in wedded bliss. They had 14 children, (according to at least two accounts), 10 of whom are fully documented and five of whom lived into their nineties.

What is still unclear is who were the Goffin family? This is a common surname in Belgium, particularly in Wallonia, where Samuel Thomas himself died. (At Erquelinnes).

Elsewhere on this blog is a lovely picture of my grandfather Bob Britton with his grandmother Marie, where they are almost certainly celebrating an occasion; perhaps Marie's 80th birthday.

We know that Marie spent the last days of her life in Brussels, the supposed 80th birthday picture was almost certainly taken there, and even my mother visited her great-grandmother in Belgium as an eight-year-old child. But where was this exactly, and how can we find out about Marie's family?

Now, thanks to a remarkable coup by my cousin David Guillaume, we have new information! He has seen a way to jog the memory of another cousin, Maurice Rogers, and Maurice has provided material which is very exciting: an envelope sent by Marie in what appears to be 1928.

The address was 11 Rue Hydraulique, Saint Josse. Below is an image of this property from 1993. We hope very much that it has not been knocked down to make way for one of the European Commission office blocks! (Number 11 is on the left).Now can anyone tell us something about this property and the family who lived there? Does anyone know someone who might have been part of the Goffin family?

A further clue is in a letter from Ida Thomas, who, before she died at 102 years old, wrote in a letter that after Samuel died her grandmother Marie Antoinette had gone to live in Brussels with her sister Therese, and that a niece or grand-niece was named Mercedes.

Please may we hear from any Goffin family who know anything about this, or anyone who knows about 11 Rue Hydraulique?

Marie–Antoinette Thomas and Atelier Verhassel, Brussels

This picture of Marie Antoinette Thomas, (née Goffin), grandmother of Lionel Britton, is not new to this blog as the old girl sent it out to all her children and grandchildren and we have seen many examples.

However, this postcard-sized print is obviously the one received by my grandfather Reginald Percy Leopold Britton, (Bob), and cherished even beyond his death in 1970.

Its importance lies in the fact that on the reverse is the imprint of the studio where the image was produced, so that we now know where Marie went to have her portrait taken.

The address might have been too obscure to be deciphered but for the fact that there is indeed to be found on the internet an Atelier Verhassel at 4 Chaussée de Gand, Bruxelles.

Marie was not necessarily born on Christmas Day 1843, and in fact that would have been unlikely if only because it would have conflicted with census evidence which suggests she was younger. She could have been entering her 80th year, or just have been about 80!

A postcard from as early as 1907 shows very infirm handwriting, but it is unclear whether this was written by Marie or by Samuel Thomas her husband. If Marie wrote all the inscriptions out by hand she was very patient and diligent, and note how the same formula is repeated on front and back of this. A slightly more plausible scenario is that an amuensis, for example a doting niece acting as carer, did all the actual penwork for her.

We would love to hear from anyone who knows stuff about the Atelier Verhassel!