The Huguenot Society

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries French protestants were persecuted for their faith. These protestants appear to have become known as Huguenots from an old German word for an oath but the word became an epiphet used by their enemies. The conflict became open civil warfare during the French Wars of Religion (1562-98).

The protestant Henri IV effectively ended the war by converting to Catholicism and established rights for protestants by the Edict of Nantes. Unfortunately, the peace was not secure and civil war broke out again in the 1620s. Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and in the succeeding years it is estimated that 400,000 protestants left France.

In the United Kingdom they settled in London, but also in many provincial cities such as Norwich, Canterbury, Bristol and Plymouth. The Huguenot Socity of London was founded in the nineteenth century to publicize information about these emigrees and to "create a bond of fellowship".

Their website has excellent resources for those researching their family history among Huguenot communities and some information that anyone reading French registers will find helpful.