Le Breton

Le Breton family page

Flora Le Breton

Record Search

Direct links to lists of baptisms, marriages and burials for the Le Breton family can be found under Family Records opposite. If you want to search for records for a spelling variant of Le Breton, or for any other family name, just click below on the first letter of the
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New records

From August 2020 we have started adding records from non-Anglican churches, and this process will continue as more records, held by Jersey Archive, are digitised and indexed. Our database now includes buttons enabling a search within registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These records will automatically appear within the results of any search made from this page.

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Bailiff Thomas Le Breton, born 1791

Bailiff Thomas Le Breton, born 1763

Origin of Surname

Did the earliest Le Bretons come to Jersey from Brittany or England?

The logical assumption is that they were Bretons from Brittany, but Le Bret, or Le Brit, is also thought to indicate that someone in post-1066 England was born there, rather than having come from Normandy with William the Conqueror.

The descendancy below, thought by some genealogists to be feasible and by others to be highly fanciful, suggests that the lineage of Jersey's early Le Bretons can be traced back through England, and thence to the Dukes of Brittany, but it is probably more likely that they were simple folk who crossed the short sea journey from Brittany to Jersey.

It is possible that both versions are true, and that there were more than one unconnected Le Bretons in Jersey in pre-medieval times. Payne, in his Armorial, sides with the French connection, but throws in the possibility that there are stronger Norman links.

Payne's Armorial of Jersey

It is supposed that this family is derived from Brittany, although the arms borne by it differ but slightly from those of Le Breton, of Normandy. One of its early members is reputed to have given to the parish church of St Brelade its service of communion plate. In 1283 Philip Le Breton, l'homme du Mont St Michel, held the franc-fief of Noirmont, the fief es Guarauz, and the fief Burnouff. In 1370 William Le Breton was a Jurat of the Royal Court.

The family formerly possessed much land in the parish of St Clement. It has given to the Island three Deans and two Baillies. Of the former, the Very Rev Thomas Le Breton was Rector of St Mary and Dean of Jersey in 1714; the Very Rev Francis Le Breton, Rector of St Saviour and Dean in 1775; and the Very Rev William Corbet Le Breton, who at present holds the two last-named preferments.

Of the latter, Sir Thomas Le Breton, was the eldest son of Dean Francis Le Breton, and was born in 1763. He received his early education at Winchester College, whence he removed to Pembroke College, Oxford, and while there obtained the Chancellor's prize. He was elected a Fellow in 1786, but declining to take orders, returned to Jersey to prosecute his studies for the insular bar. In 1799 he was sworn an Advocate of the Royal Court, where he soon became eminent. He was appointed Attorney-General of the Island in 1802, and Lieutenant-Bailly to Lord Carteret in 1816. In 1824 he was deputed by the States of Jersey of Jersey to plead the cause of the Islanders before the English Government in resistance of the encroachments of the French on the local oyster fishing limits

On this occasion, Mr Le Breton had conferred on him the honour of knighthood. On the death of Lord Carteret in 1826, the patronage of the office of Bailly, long held by his family in hereditary succession, reverted to the Crown, and Sir Thomas succeeded to the vacant chair. He died in 1838. His portrait, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is in the possession of the family, and has been engraved.

His eldest son, also named Thomas, was for many years Attorney-General, and afterwards Bailly of the Island. He was born in 1790, and studied jurisprudence at Caen, in Normandy; and whilst there was presented to Napoleon I on the occasion of the Emperor visiting that city. Subsequently, he became a member of the Jersey bar, Vice-Consul for France in Jersey, and a Receiver of the King's dues in the Island. He had, before this, entered the St Hclier Battalion of the Militia, in which he rose to the command in 1820; and on the auspicious visit of her Majesty to the Island in September, 1846, the whole of the insular troops being under the command of Colonel Le Breton, Her Majesty conferred on him the honour of knighthood.

In July 1848 Sir Thomas succeeded the late Sir John De Veulle as Bailly of Jersey, a post which he held until his death in November 1857.

Arms (as borne by Philip-Hemery Le Breton, : Azure, two chevronels, or; a mullet for difference. Impaling: Argent, an oak-tree, ppr. ; on a chief, gules, three mullets of the field, for Aikin. Crest : A rose, gules, slipped and leaved, vert.

Variants

• Le Breton 1291
• Le Bretton, 1287
• Les Bretaus 1331
• Le Bretoun 1309
• Le Bretun 1286
• Le Britun 1274
• dictus Brito, 1270
• Brito 1236-7
• Le Bret
• Le Brit

Family records

Family trees

Although much of the efforts of Le Breton researchers have been devoted to attempting to connect all family descendancies to a common ancestor, they have not succeeded. There are a number of trees below which are not linked, and even a suggestion that the Le Bretons came to Jersey via England. That is perhaps unlikely, but it is by no means unlikely that different people settled in Jersey around the same time, and having come from nearby Brittany in France, in an era when family names were by no means in universal use, they were simply called Le Breton, to indicate their origins. However, the appearance of the same given names at the top of many of the trees suggests the opposite. We have revised our Master Tree to take it back several generations, with the caveat that there are no records to prove the descendancy, which includes at least two generations for which no names are known.

• From the early Jersey Le Bretons back to Dukes of Brittany, via Thomas a Becket's assassin: A perhaps somewhat fanciful tree which is said to trace the ancestry of the Le Bretons before they arrived in Jersey.
• Descendants of Herbert Le Breton: The master tree from which some of those which follow have direct links
• Descendants of Ambroise Le Breton, including Lillie Langtry

These four trees are referred to in a major history of the Le Breton family

• Branch A - Descendants of Michel Le Breton (1550-1610) and Perronnelle Bibes (1560-1625)
• Branch B - Descendants of Servais Le Breton (1490-1567) and Helen Le Sueur
• Branch C - Descendants of Jean Le Breton (1547-1616)
• Branch D - Descendants of Raoulin Le Breton (1440-1485)

• Descendants of Ambrois Le Breton, c1550 and Abraham Le Breton, c1580
• Descendants of Ambrois Le Breton: Another version of the above tree
• Baudains-Le Breton link in the 17th century
• Descendants of Pierres Le Breton (1482- )
• Descendants of Philippe Joshua Le Breton - this tree was found to have an inaccurate descent from the head of the tree and has been deleted
• Descendants of Edouard Le Breton Added 2022
• Tree linking 12th century Poingdestre family to Le Breton family

Family documents

• Partage of Servais Le Breton's héritage‎ ^[1]

Church records

Tips for using these links

• Le Breton baptisms in Jersey
• Le Breton marriages in Jersey (groom)
• Le Breton marriages in Jersey (bride)
• Le Breton burials in Jersey

Family histories and biographies

• The Rev J A Messervy's history of the Le Breton family
• Le Breton emigrants to New Zealand
• Le Bretons of St Brelade and Trinity
• A history of the Le Breton family
• Francois Le Breton, Dean
• Dean Thomas Le Breton
• Thomas Le Breton, Bailiff
• Thomas Le Breton Jnr, Bailiff
• William Corbet Le Breton, Dean
• Lillie Langtry, actress and socialite, daughter of William Corbet Le Breton
• John Le Breton, Canadian Army officer, farmer and litigant

Great War service

• Le Breton family members who served in World War 1
• Presentation to Regimental Sergeant Major Jack Le Breton, DCM, at the Town Hall

Family wills

• Le Breton family wills from 1663 to 1980 held by Jersey Archive

• Le Breton burial records 1820-1978

Family homes

• Rock Vale, Trinity
• Mayfield, Trinity
• Les Ifs, Trinity
• La Hague Manor, St Peter
• Beechfield, Trinity
• Beau Vallon, St Saviour

Family businesses

• Thomas Le Breton and son Thomas were master paperhangers at 4 Halkett Place in the 1840s and '50s

Arms

Family album

Flora Le Breton (1899–1951) was an English silent film actress from Croydon. She was a dainty blonde with dark blue eyes. She was known as the British Mary Pickford. Despite her name it appears that she had no connections to the Le Breton family in Jersey. Her father was also born in England, the son of a Frenchman

Le Breton grocery shop in Hue Street in the 1920s

Le Breton family outing in 1926. See grocery shop photograph above

Occupation curfew cards

Curfew passes issued to Francis, John, John Hedley and Raymond Le Breton during the Occupation as members of the Honorary Police ^[2]

Family gravestones

Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs

Tips

The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.

We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling

The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.

New records

Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form

Notes and references

1. ↑ Jersey Archive document L/C/133/A/6 Partages des Héritage between Jehan de la Haye, Pierres Beaucamp, Thomas Dorey and Pierres Le Geyt on behalf of their wives, part heirs to the héritage of Servays Le Breton son of Pierres. Records the partition of the héritage of the late Servays Le Breton. Jehan de la Haye acting for his wife Margueritte receives land including; in Clos de ses Cosines and rentes. Pierres Beaucamp acting for his wife Laurence receives unidentified land and rentes. Thomas Dorey acting on behalf of his wife Marie receives land in Clos de la Gommare and Les Costils du Douaire and rentes. Pierres Le Geyt acting on behalf of his wife Guillemette receives land in Clos de Perronet, land in Clos de la Gommarre and rentes.
2. ↑ These cards are held by Jersey Archive. Visit The Archive online catalogue for more information. A subscription may be needed to view some of the site's content