The Bosdet Family

It is a strange fact that you will not find the name Bosdet listed in the current Jersey telephone directory. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, it was to be found in the rates lists and census returns of many Island parishes, with perhaps more numerous mentions in St Peter, St Lawrence and, of course, St Helier. 

Today, Bosdets are to be found in many parts of the world, from Australia to Florida, from Mexico to the Gaspe Peninsula of North America. The Bosdets who are interested in genealogy look to Jersey as the cradle of the family. Although the name is first recorded in the late Middle Ages, it is with Jacques Bosdet, born in Jersey in 1779, that most contemporary Bosdets claim a link.

The patriarch, Jacques, married three times. His second wife, Jeanne Coignard, who he married in St Clement’s Church, Jersey in 1808, bore him seven children, of whom the sixth, Thomas, born in 1822, the future master mariner, was destined to be the father of Henry Thomas, artist and subject of our present study, born in 1856.

After the death of his first wife, Sophie Le Roy, in 1859, Captain Thomas Bosdet marries her sister Emmeline in 1861, who thus became Henry Thomas’ stepmother. This couple has a son Edgar, Henry Thomas’ half-brother.

Sadly, Henry Thomas’ line of the family was not to endure. In marked contrast with his grandfather, Henry Thomas has only one child, Harry Westropp Bosdet, born in 1916, who was to lose his young life in action during the Normandy landings of June 1944.

Extract from The Glass Rainbow, Aidan Smith OBE, Jersey Heritage Trust 2005

Henry Thomas Bosdet's Family Tree

Henry Thomas Bosdet Family Photographs

Captain Thomas Bosdet, Henry Thomas Bosdet, Emmeline Le Roy (1861) (Photo courtesy of Paul Bosdet, Carnforth, Lancs, UK)	Emmeline Le Roy Henry Thomas Bosdet's step-mother (Photo courtesy of Paul Bosdet, Carnforth, Lancs, UK)
Henry Thomas Bosdet Post 1862 (Photo courtesy of Paul Bosdet, Carnforth, Lancs, UK)	Edgar Bosdet Henry Thomas Bosdet's half-brother (Photo courtesy of Paul Bosdet, Carnforth, Lancs, UK)
Henry Thomas Bosdet As a young man (Photo courtesy of Paul Bosdet, Carnforth, Lancs, UK)	Henry Thomas Bosdet (1906) At 50 years, visiting Trinity Manor, Jersey (Photo courtesy of Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive)

Harry Westropp Bosdet (HTB's only child)