Origins of the Debes
Family
According to family
legend, the Debes (pronounced 'De Besse') family escaped from La Rochelle,
France, shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
Huguenots fled La Rochelle at the time of its siege and capture by
royalist, Catholic troops. Their destination: Protestant countries such
as England and Holland. The Huguenot Society in London, England, has
records of indigent French Huguenot émigrés from the late 17th century
whom they helped. More research may dig up a clue there. (For a brief
history of the Huguenots, see "Who
were the Huguenots?")
There are Debeses in Texas and
Kentucky, but they trace their roots to the Debeses concentrated in the
Strasbourg area of France/Germany. The Debes name seems only to be found
in protestant-sympathizing areas such as Holland, the Bas-Rhin, and
England. In Holland, the name appears as "De Bes". In France,
though there may be as many as 250 Debes households, the form "de
Besse" is more common. The name translates to 'birch tree', and the
surname may refer to a small village, Besse, south of the Loire.
The above
information courtesy of A. Debes, England, 1999.
Davies of
Liverpool
The first Debes
ancestor we have evidence of, John
Debes (1726 -1789), is said to have
been 'press-ganged' in Liverpool, and escaped into Wales, where he
changed his name to Davies (a very common name in Wales) in order to
avoid recapture and transportation or hanging. John Debes died in
Wavertree, Lancashire, England, June 16, 1789.
The Debes/Davies were nurserymen in Wavertree,
Liverpool, England, for at least 150 years. The family owned Thomas
Davies and Co., nurserymen and seedsmen, Wavertree (See Thomas
Davies II Biography).
John
Arthur Davies, 1835-1915, (brother of Thomas Davies II)
married Mary Ann Masser of France. They had four children: Thomas
Harold, Ernest, Harriet, and John Arthur (II).
"My grandmother's name was Mary Ann Masser... She was delicate,
very beautiful, and possessed an extraordinary voice. She was studying
music in Paris at the time she met my grandfather, John Arthur Davies...
My grandfather was an oil importer; he amassed a large fortune
at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. This, due to the introduction of
illuminating gas and the use of adulterants, which he would not
countenance, barely lasted his own lifetime. He died in 1915, aged 80.
His wife had died 43 years previously in childbirth, although she had
been consumptive for a year or two preceding her death."
From "Assets and Liabilities", Pauline
Winifred Davies, 1932
John
Arthur Davies (II) married Florence
Winn YATES in 1867 in Fairfield, Liverpool, England. At some point,
they moved to Leeds. They had eight children: Florence Thelma, Marjorie,
John Leslie, Arthur Ronald, and Audrey May (all born in England),
Pauline Winifred (born in Victoria, B.C.), and Thomas Yates (born in
Berkeley, CA).
The family departed their home in Leeds
abt. 1900, stopping to visit 'Uncle Tom' (Thomas
Davies II) in Liverpool before setting sail for Canada. They stopped
first in Calgary. From Calgary they went to Victoria,
British Columbia, and finally settled in Berkeley, California, about 1911.
"My father [John
Arthur Davies (II)] received his early
education at the Leeds Grammar School under Rev. Powys, father of the
famous Powys brothers. He ran away to sea at the age of 14, received
his master's papers at the age of 24 when he married my mother. My
mother [Florence
Winn YATES] had quite a large fortune; this enabled my father to go
into the banking business and a number of other side-lines, at all of
which he lost money. He finally settled on publicity and advertising,
introduced the famous Players Cigarettes, and set on its way the first
gigantic, systematic world-wide advertising campaign, that of the
Nestle Mild and Chocolate Company.
"A few years after Audrey's birth, my
father, much to my mother's dissatisfaction, picked up bag and
baggage, and shaking the dust of England from his feet, sailed with
his family to Canada. With foresight now vindicated he chose Calgary -
a puny settlement of frame houses, divided by rivers of mud where
Indians still came to trade beadwork and furs for whiskey and a bolt
of printed calico. Here he settled my mother, who had never even
buttoned her own shoes, to wrest with open plumbing and woodstove.
(The cook-servant who accompanied the family to Canada demanded her
return ticket to England in short order.)
"He himself set out to acquire land
whereon the principal business section of that thriving community
stands; the task only too easy, but what after that? The land had
little real value; he amused himself by building the library that was
later the first public library in Canada.
"With the full winter came sickness for
my mother, and the end of my father's game. The doctors told him
mother would never be well in the terrific cold of Central Canada,
that the coast would be her only salvation. After a visit to Victoria
for recuperation her ultimatum was removal to Victoria or permanent
return to England. Then, drawing up an elaborate document, he gave his
recently acquired domain to the City of Calgary forever, his library
to the people of Calgary, and set off again with his progeny to the
halcyon shores of Victoria. Here he established the household, if only
for a few years, yet long enough for my advent to take place - an
unexpected event after ten years of rest for my mother."
From "Assets and Liabilities", Pauline
Winifred Davies, 1932
Debes/Davies Gravestone in Childwall
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