▶Date of birth:  9 May 1830        Place of birth:  Paris, France

▶Father: Pierre Jean Francois Auguste De Romestin, Count de Romestin, of Paris   Mother: Frances Ellen Boyle, youngest daughter of Henry Boyle Deane, of Caversham, Berkshire

▶Spouse(s): (Caroline Marie) Josephine Lehmann    Date(s) of marriage:  29 June 1861     Place(s) of marriage:   British Legation, Dresden, Saxony

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican, Catholic)

▶Lifestory: Though born in Paris, the only son of Augustus de Romestin, (Augustus) Henry (Eugene) de Romestin was baptised in 1831 at Mottisfont, Hampshire. He attended Winchester College from 1843, from which he entered St John’s College, Oxford, BA 1852, MA 1854; in 1851 he was elected a member of the Committee of the University’s Architectural Society. He was ordained Deacon in 1853, and Priest (both Oxford) in 1854. In 1853 he was appointed Curate of Mells, Somerset, and subsequently Curate of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, which he left in 1855.

He went to live in Brighton, and in the following year was reportedly received into the Catholic Church, though was said to have been offered a dispensation whereby he could conceal this and continue to officiate within the Church of England for another year (he was said to have officiated at St Paul’s and at the Cemetery in Brighton); this became part of a Brighton Tractarian scandal in 1856-7 in which de Romestin published a “pro-Pope” hymn-book. In 1861 he married Josephine in Saxony; their two children were born in Prussia and Saxony in 1862 and 1863. He then became Chaplain at Freiburg 1863-5, Chaplain at Baden Baden 1865-8 and first Incumbent of the English Church there in 1868.

The acrimony over his supposed conversion was presumably resolved as he returned to England as Perpetual Curate of Woodland, Dorset 1868-9. About 1869 he moved to Berkeley Hall, Pittville Circus Road, as a Priest “without  cure of souls”, who took in pupils as Headmaster of Berkeley Hall school; he and his family remained in Pittville until about 1873, when he was appointed Vicar of Freeland, Eynsham 1874-85 (he was also Rural Dean of Woodstock 1879-85), and subsequently of Stoney Stratford, Buckinghamshire in 1885.

In 1885 he became Warden of the House of Mercy, Great Maplestead, Essex, a home for ‘fallen women’ and like other similar places was run by Anglo-Catholics (it opened in 1867 and after various changes eventually closed in 1957). He left Great Maplestead in 1891 to become Rector of St Luke’s, Tiptree Heath, Kelvedon, Essex 1891-6, during which time he was also Chaplain at San Remo 1894-6. From 1896 until his death he served as Perpetual Curate of Sledmere, Yorkshire (value £300 a year), and Rural Dean of Buckrose. His publications included The conscience clause and compulsory education; a sketch of primary education in Germany (1867) and The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (1884).

He died in West Kensington, Middlesex in 1900, at the age of seventy, and was buried at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Freeland, Oxfordshire. His wealth at death was sworn at over £600.

▶Moved to Pittville from: Woodland, Dorset    Moved from Pittville to:  Freeland, Oxfordshire

▶Date of death:  18 May 1900    Place of death: 57 Edith Road, West Kensington, Middlesex

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 9885

Contributor(s):  Alan Munden/John Simpson