Mrs Mary Ann Peloquin

The first party of French Huguenots, driven out of their country by the persecution of Louis XIV (the Sun King), landed at Bristol in December 1681. Initially the Mayor and Aldermen were vexed as to what they could do for these refugees from religious persecution. The Mayor was concerned by the arrival of these religious dissenters, who received so much public support and sympathy, due to their plight. When another party arrived in August 1682, the Corporation felt obliged to offer financial assistance, £42 10s, for their relief. This second group included merchants, a doctor, three surgeons and nine weavers, in addition to a majority of merchant seamen and their families.

By 1693 a number of the Huguenot families had prospered, and Stephen Peloquin was admitted as a burgess, on the nomination of the mayor. A member of that family, David, was elected Sheriff in 1735, and mayor in 1751.

The last survivor of this leading Huguenot family, Mary Ann Peloquin, died on 23 July 1778. By her will she left £19,000, lent by her some years before to the Corporation, for charitable purposes. The Corporation were to administer the various bequests, which included annual payments to 156 poor men and women.

Mary Ann’s will ran to 23 pages, with 10 codicils, and the Peloquin Charity was administered from offices at 18, St. Augustine’s Parade, known as Peloquin Chambers. This was close to the spot where the Huguenots first arrived in Bristol in 1681.

Bristol Charities assumed responsibility for the bequest, when they were formed in 1836. Prior to that time, the Peloquin gift had been a bone of political contention for some time. Bristol’s Liberals had contended that charitable gifts, from the fund, had been made for political reasons. It transpired that of the last 45 recipients of the Peloquin gift for poor lying-in women (women in childbirth), 35 had Conservative spouses and only 3 Liberal. The mayor and the leading aldermen nominated the recipients.

After Bristol Charities took over the charities previously administered by the Corporation there was a long drawn out battle to settle the accounts and establish the true financial position. It took 5 years, until 1841, before the £19,000 Peloquin bequest was transferred to the trustees of Bristol Charities. Her portrait hangs at the offices of Bristol Charities