Facebook post #032 (Sep 2020)
My grandmother was a Larard: the Larards were refugees. Generally remembered as Huguenots – the Calvinists murdered in their tens of thousands by Catherine de Medici in 1572 – they may actually have been Flemish or Walloon refugees from the same period, probably weavers!
Somehow, our family identified Mountsorrel near Loughborough as a place offering suitable employment and religious freedom. Then they moved to Derby where they were involved in the nascent silk industry. From there one son moved to Hull. In 1812, he, Thomas Larard, set up a watchmaking business in a building I photographed when I visited the city, not knowing it had been ‘ours’. Since then, I have managed to buy the sign from the successor shop which was run by the family in the centre of Hull from 1871 to 1975. This shop was established by Thomas’s son Frederick. The photos are of Frederick, the two shops, and the sign.
Frederick was a remarkable man who spoke up for the workers and ratepayers of Hull, and was elected mayor in 1904. One of his interests was in improving the local tram system: he visited Hull fair to buy the strongest horses, and Stockton to investigate electric trams. He symbolically laid the first electric tram line in Hull in 1898.
The Larard name has not disappeared from the shopping streets around Hull. In 1896, Frederick’s son founded the Larard estate agency chain, which is still going strong.
