I’m very fond of the heritage statues peering into Cooper Street from the walls of buildings. We have a salmon fisherman, a cooper, an old merchant, and Sir Richard Grenville himself, heavily armed and armoured, reminding us of Bideford’s role in the colonisation of the New World. These provide a vivid depiction of our maritime heritage but give the unfortunate impression that our past was entirely created by men, and that women had little role in it. 

However, a discussion the other day revealed that there had been plans for a fifth statue, that of a female Huguenot lace worker, which never came to fruition because of lack of funding. 

Now, with so much talk about revitalising the centre of Bideford, drawing on its Heritage Harbour status, there may be an opportunity to redress the imbalance. But should we go for the original plan for a French or Dutch incomer (the Huguenots were Protestants fleeing religious persecution) or commemorate another woman or women who have featured in Bideford’s history? The famous ‘witches’, perhaps. 

This led to another conversation about the extent of Huguenot settlement in Bideford and their possible contribution to the lace industry, and a search for historical evidence. The Huguenot community in Barnstaple is quite well documented, thanks to a memoir written by one of their number who arrived as a refugee in 1685 when France revoked the Edict of Nantes which had allowed freedom of religious observance. He landed with 124 others at Appledore and from there they made their way to Barnstaple where they were received with great kindness by locals who took them into their houses. French language services were held in St Anne’s chapel, next to the Parish Church, for the best part of a century. It is believed that they contributed to the development of processes for the manufacture and dying of wool products, but there is no word about lace. 

Bideford too welcomed Protestant settlers from abroad. In the seventeenth century, French Huguenots worshiped at a site in Chapel Lane, off Allhalland Street and the community survived there for a century or more. Some families became prominent in the silk and cotton industries. 

Bideford certainly had its Huguenot community – Samuel Pepys’s wife Elizabeth, who was born in Bideford, was the daughter of a Protestant emigré – but more work needs to be done to connect them to lacemaking.