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Lecand, Benjamin Louis; Samuel; William (1841-1900)

Lecand, Benjamin Louis, Samuel & William (fl. 1809-1911)

London; carvers, gilders and picture frame makers (fl.1809-1911)

A family of three generations of carvers, gilders and picture frame makers who operated in the Tottenham Court Road area, 1835-c. 1890.

Benjamin Louis Lecand (b.c.1783-1863) - 1st generation

Benjamin Louis Lecand’s parents were Daniel Lecand (1745-1809) and Sarah Izard (1747-1849), members of the French Protestant Church, Artillery Street, Spitalfields. He was recorded at 38 Great Prescot Street, Goodman's Fields from 1809 until at least 1829; appearing as a witness to theft at the Old Bailey Court on 23 October 1828 when he described himself as a looking-glass maker living in Prescot Street.

His trade embraced picture frame manufacture, the restoration of paintings, the sale of stationery and the hanging of wall paper. His insurance in 1820 totalled £1,000. This covered his house in Prescot Street and a workshop with dwelling rooms over in the yard behind. Stock, including pictures and glass, was valued at £300 with an additional £200 for his stock as a stationer and paper hanger. In 1824 the cover had fallen in [this is what DEFM says but think it should be ‘to’ rather ‘in’] £750 of which stock and utensils accounted for £325. Items covered included a silvering table. 

Lecand was recorded in directories at 246 Tottenham Court Road, 1835–39, and at the same address in the census of 1841. Records of Sun Fire Insurance, 21 March 1838 [London Metropolitan Archives, MS 11936/565/1269881] for George Jackson, frame maker & composition ornament maker of 50 Rathbone Place, W, show Jackson’s other properties included 246 Tottenham Court Road (Lecand, carver & gilder). 

Later census records showed Lecand living with wife and two of his daughters in Kentish Town (1851) and at 1 Exeter Street, St Pancras (1861), still working as a carver and gilder. He was married twice, first to Elizabeth Vincent on 5th April 1807 at St Helens, Bishopsgate and then to Elizabeth Mary Genotin on 24 March 1815 at Christ Church with St Mary and St Stephen, Spitalfields. 

Benjamin Lecand’s death was registered in October/December 1863 in St Pancras. 

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Convex mirror

A number of Regency convex mirrors with eagle surmounts are known bearing the trade label of this maker. A pair of these mirrors are in the collection of the Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo, and other examples are known there, suggesting a flourishing export business, c. 1810 [NF.1936-0474A]. 

Samuel Lecand (b.1818-d.1911) – 2nd generation

Samuel was a son from Benjamin Louis’s second marriage. He followed his father into the carving and gilding trade in Tottenham Court Road. He was baptised on 8 April 1818 at White Row Chapel (Independent), Spitalfields. The family moved to 246 Tottenham Court Road between 1829-35, where Samuel was recorded in the census of 1841. He married Elizabeth Graves on 20th October 1842 in the Parish Church of Hackney. By 1851 he was recorded as a master carver and gilder, employing eight men at 246 Tottenham Court Road, with his wife, two children (including a son, William aged 5), an apprentice, George Le Blond (aged 18) and one servant. In the 1871 census he was employing only four men and by the 1881 census he was living at 176 Tottenham Court Road (a dwelling house), as a master carver & gilder employing two men and one apprentice. 

From 1850-86 trade and commercial directories listed his trades as a carver and gilder, looking glass silverer, cabinet carver, plate glass factor and ornamental carver to the trade. The census 1891 recorded Lecand, a retired carver living on his own means, boarding with Mary Ainger in Hackney.  By 1893 he had retired to Elsinore Lodge, Belle Vue Crescent, Cockington, Devon and in 1911 (aged 93) he was living with his daughter, Emily Elizabeth Chenoweth at 28 Sylvan Road, Exeter (her husband, John, having come from Chenoweth). He died in September 1911.

Exhibitions
  • Great Exhibition, 1851 - Lecand exhibited a console glass and table in Louis XIV (illus. Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue, p. 257).  ‘The Console-Glass and Table combined, are designed and manufactured by Mr. S. Lecand, of London; the frames are carved in American pine and lime-tree woods, and double gilt in matted and burnished gold.  The style is a variation of the Louis Quatorze; birds, flowers, and winged horses being mingled with the other description of ornamental work, and giving to the whole more novelty than we are often accustomed to see’. 
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Lecand

London International Exhibition, 1862. Lecand’s name also appears as an exhibitor (5769) of a ‘console table and glass &c.’ with his address as 246 Tottenham Court Road.   

Lecand, William (1846-1933) – 3rd generation

The son of Samuel Lecand and grandson of Benjamin Louis Lecand, William was described as a carver & gilder at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Housden in 1870 in Hampstead. Their address was listed as 19 Chenies Street, Fitzrovia on the baptism document of their daughter, Agnes Kate, dated 24 August 1871. 

Census records show William as a carver & builder, living with his wife and two nine-year old daughters at 25 Grafton Terrace, WC (1881); recorded as a carver & gilder living at 3 Shirlock Road, Kentish Town (1891); and 41 Shirlock Road (1901). He was listed as a gilder (of picture frames) at 9 Rona Road, Gospel Oak by 1911, where he lived with his daughter Edith Bailey and her husband, Charles, a leather warehouseman. His death was registered in 1933 in Hackney. 

Sources: DEFM; Ancestry.co.uk; Barty-King, Maples Fine Furnishers, A Household Name for 150 Years (1992); Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840 (1996); Meyer, Great Exhibitions. London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia. 1851-1900 (2006).