appeared in Jersey around 1500, way before any Huguenot exodus and well
before the first recorded influx of French Huguenots in 1548. Settling around
St. Ouen in the west of the island, Guille may have been related to a ‘black
sheep’ member of a family of minor French nobility on the borders of
Brittany and Normandy (possibly ‘William’ Le Rossignol, who appeared
about 1480), and down through the generations this branch of the Le
Rossignols—just like the Huguenots—achieved a powerful presence in Jersey
and indeed internationally, with family members prominent in banking, the
judiciary, medicine, foreign service, business, academia and the military.
Mistaken provenance or not, what is certain is that Robert Le Rossignol
was born into an established, anglicised, professional, protestant family. His
father Augustin bore the given name of many generations of ‘Le Rossignols’.
Born in 1842,
10 he was educated firstly in Jersey, but subsequently in France
at Rennes and Coutances, obtaining the French Bachelor of Science (B. és
Sc.) in 1862. He then entered the London Hospital as a student of medicine
becoming a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1866 and gaining
his Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1867. He took his M.D.
Aberd at Marischal College Aberdeen in 1868, a choice which Robert later
described as predicated on the fact that at the time there were just two
Universities in England but four old Universities in Scotland.
23 He subsequently established a successful medical practise in St. Helier later the same
year. Robert’s mother Edith
13 (née Sorel, b. 1845), as befitted the wife of a
professional man in Victorian times, ran the household.
Robert’s birth would have brought great joy to Augustin and Edith, but for
those islanders beyond the immediate Le Rossignol family, 1884 was an
unremarkable year, ‘enlivened’ only by a visit from the UK President of the
Board of Trade and a particularly severe winter’s storm. The Reverend
Alban E. Ragg describes aspects of Jersey at the time of Robert’s birth.
14
The population of the island … was about 53,000, nearly 30,000 of whom
resided in St. Helier. Its exports during the year were … bulls, 93; cows and
heifers, 1,516; total, 1,609. Butter, 958 cwt. Fruit (raw) of all kinds, 19,613
cwt. and potatoes, 49,296 tons … 1884 was enlivened by a visit to the Island
of the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, M.P., then President of the Board of Trade,
accompanied, in the Trinity House yacht Galatea, by Sir W. Vernon Harcourt,
on June 3rd; The close of the year, however, proved disastrous, in that the
Island was swept with one of the most terrific storms it has experienced, with
resultant damage, not to houses and shipping alone, but to the coast and
harbour works generally, accompanied on December 20th with the loss of the
1 Robert Le Rossignol
7
before the first recorded influx of French Huguenots in 1548. Settling around
St. Ouen in the west of the island, Guille may have been related to a ‘black
sheep’ member of a family of minor French nobility on the borders of
Brittany and Normandy (possibly ‘William’ Le Rossignol, who appeared
about 1480), and down through the generations this branch of the Le
Rossignols—just like the Huguenots—achieved a powerful presence in Jersey
and indeed internationally, with family members prominent in banking, the
judiciary, medicine, foreign service, business, academia and the military.
Mistaken provenance or not, what is certain is that Robert Le Rossignol
was born into an established, anglicised, professional, protestant family. His
father Augustin bore the given name of many generations of ‘Le Rossignols’.
Born in 1842,
10 he was educated firstly in Jersey, but subsequently in France
at Rennes and Coutances, obtaining the French Bachelor of Science (B. és
Sc.) in 1862. He then entered the London Hospital as a student of medicine
becoming a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1866 and gaining
his Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1867. He took his M.D.
Aberd at Marischal College Aberdeen in 1868, a choice which Robert later
described as predicated on the fact that at the time there were just two
Universities in England but four old Universities in Scotland.
23 He subsequently established a successful medical practise in St. Helier later the same
year. Robert’s mother Edith
13 (née Sorel, b. 1845), as befitted the wife of a
professional man in Victorian times, ran the household.
Robert’s birth would have brought great joy to Augustin and Edith, but for
those islanders beyond the immediate Le Rossignol family, 1884 was an
unremarkable year, ‘enlivened’ only by a visit from the UK President of the
Board of Trade and a particularly severe winter’s storm. The Reverend
Alban E. Ragg describes aspects of Jersey at the time of Robert’s birth.
14
The population of the island … was about 53,000, nearly 30,000 of whom
resided in St. Helier. Its exports during the year were … bulls, 93; cows and
heifers, 1,516; total, 1,609. Butter, 958 cwt. Fruit (raw) of all kinds, 19,613
cwt. and potatoes, 49,296 tons … 1884 was enlivened by a visit to the Island
of the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, M.P., then President of the Board of Trade,
accompanied, in the Trinity House yacht Galatea, by Sir W. Vernon Harcourt,
on June 3rd; The close of the year, however, proved disastrous, in that the
Island was swept with one of the most terrific storms it has experienced, with
resultant damage, not to houses and shipping alone, but to the coast and
harbour works generally, accompanied on December 20th with the loss of the
1 Robert Le Rossignol
7