History of the le Grelle family

Origins

The family's earliest recorded line begins in 1586 at Mainvault, near Ath, in the County of Hainaut. In 1670 a descendant from Ath was received as a burgher of Antwerp, where the family has been established ever since. The name is found as le Grelle, Le Grelle and Legrelle.

Trade and industry

In the 18th century the family traded internationally from Antwerp and Ostend. Between 1730 and 1750 it imported textiles, silk, sugar, cocoa, tea and porcelain from England, Portugal and China, working with the Swedish East India Company, and it held shares in the Ostend Company. It went on to run sugar refineries, paper mills and a cotton-printing works that employed 576 people in 1770.

Banking

In 1792 the family founded a private bank in Antwerp, then the oldest in the country after Nagelmackers. During the upheavals of 1792–93 its vaults sheltered the reliquary of Blessed Anne of St. Bartholomew, venerated as a protector of Antwerp. The bank issued its own banknotes until a few years after the National Bank of Belgium was founded in 1850. Its archives are held today by BNP Paribas Fortis.

Nobility

The family entered the nobility on 29 January 1794, ennobled by Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, and was recognised by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1822. In 1852 Pope Pius IX conferred the hereditary title of count, authorised in Belgium by King Leopold I in 1853 and extended to all descendants by King Leopold II in 1871. A member of the family sat in the National Congress of 1830–31, which founded the Belgian state.

Arms and motto

Azure, a fess between three letters A in chief, one and two, and a curry comb in base, all Or. The shield is supported by two lions Or, armed and langued Gules, and ensigned with a count's coronet.

Motto: Nostrum Praesidium Deus, “God is our protection.”

Legacy

The name lives on in the Legrellelei in Antwerp and the Legrellestraat in Gestel, in the Netherlands, and in plants such as Jacaranda legrelliana and Calathea legrelleana.

Family association

The Le Grelle Family Association, a non-profit founded in 1955, preserves the family's archives and traditions and publishes the yearly Legrelliana: legrelle.info