| AdminHistory | Pierre Daudé, a clerk in the Exchequer and resident of Soho, who died in January 1733, left by his will of December 1732 (see H/E/1/1, pp. 9-10 and H/E/2/12) to the Hospital various 'Long Annuities'. He also empowered the Hospital Directors, 'if in urgent cases they shall judge it expedient, to apply what part they shall think fit of the annual income, not exceeding one-half of the same, to the charitable contribution for the relief of the meanest among the poor French Protestant Refugees, lately going by the name 'La Soupe'. A later clause in the will runs as follows: 'Item, I give and bequeath unto the said Governors and Directors for the use and benefit of the said Poor French Protestant Refugees relieved by the said charitable contribution lately called 'La Soupe' the sum of Two hundred Pounds.'
The wording of these clauses gave rise to a dispute between the two Soupe Charities in Spitalfields and Soho, each claiming to be the one meant by the testator to have the benefit of this bequest. The Hospital Directors, however, appear to have been in no great doubt, as it was reported without comment in their Court Minutes for 3 October 1733, that the £200 Daudé legacy had been paid to the 'Maison de Charité de Soho'. The controversy is described more fully in Marmoy's paper (Proceedings of the Huguenot Society (London: Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland), vol. XXIII, pp. 134-147. The papers are undated but doubtless of 1733. |