Swedish American Genealogist

Volume 35 | Number 3 Article 4

9-1-2015

The Walloons: an enigmatic peopleRobert Mattson

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Recommended CitationMattson, Robert (2015) "The Walloons: an enigmatic people," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 35 : No. 3 , Article 4.Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol35/iss3/4

The Walloons - an enigmatic people

Who were they, those foreigners that cameto Sweden during the 1600s?

BY ROBERT MATTSON

Many genealogists with Swedishroots are looking for Walloon an-cestors. To have a Walloon ancestorseems to be very desirable. It seemsto be just as good as to have a Walloonancestor as a nobleman.

Myths about WalloonsThere are many myths about specificphysical traits that are supposed toindicate that there are Walloons inthe family tree. Many think serious-ly that a lump on the neck, a lack ofan ear-tip, a long second toe, or a spe-cial crease in one of the arms is whatconstitutes a Walloon descendant.Some also think that if the ancestorhad dark hair and brown eyes thatwould also be a result of a Walloonancestor.

None of the above is relevant forthe Walloons. The Walloons were nota consistent group of people, but areinstead a mixture of Germanic peo-ple, Celts, and Gallo-Romans. Thatthey could be blonde is for instanceshown in the name of the hammer-smith Henri le Blanc — Henri theblonde. Some people with a Celticheritage are redheads, and certainlysome of the Walloons were redheads.Yes, some of the Walloons were darkwith brown eyes, but the descriptionalso fits German immigrants.

The Walloon areaThe Walloons originally came fromWallonia, which is an area in south-ern Belgium, Luxemburg, and thecounty of Valois in northern France.They had their own language whichdeveloped parallel with French fromthe "vulgar Latin." In the 1600s

Wallonia is a part of Belgium, France, and Luxemburg.

Wallonia was a part of the SpanishNetherlands. Belgium did not be-come an independent state until1830, when it was divided from theNetherlands.

A metal working areaIn the Ardennes area of Walloniathere were already in medieval timesmines and ironworks and hammerforges. In 1618 the Thirty Years' Warbroke out in Europe. It concernedWallonia in that it became difficultto export iron to other countries,which resulted in a high degree ofunemployed smiths. Sweden was alsoone of the fighting forces.

At the same time Sweden neededto upgrade the army, and large sumswere borrowed from the Walloonbanker Louis de Geer. He became thelessee of a number of iron works in

Sweden, and hired competent work-ers from Wallonia with the help of hispartner Wellam de Besche. They hadagents in the cities of Amsterdam,Liege, and Sedan (situated in north-ern France), where the recruitedworkers signed their contracts.

Why did they leaveThere have been theories that thereligious affiliations of the Walloonswould have been the cause of theiremigration, but the main causeseems to have been that they wereout of a job. The Walloons weremembers of the Calvinistic denomi-nation, their counterparts in Francewere called Huguenots. This Protes-tant faith had been persecuted inFrance during the 1500s. During the1600s it has not been shown that theywere oppressed by the Catholic

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Church. In spite of this, severalWalloons emigrated, besides to Swe-den, to Spain and England. Manywere not accepted into workers'guilds because of religious differ-ences. A few travelled to America in1624, and in 1924 the U.S. publisheda postal stamp, "Huguenot WalloonTercentenary."

Where did they go?We know the names of about 800 Wal-loons that immigrated to Sweden.Roughly 20% returned to Walloniaafter the end of their contract. Thosethat stayed also had their wives andchildren come to Sweden. The jour-ney started in Amsterdam, as thatwas the usual port for travellingWalloons. If they were lucky, theyescaped the French pirates of Dun-kirk.

The first Walloons came to Nykop-

ing (Sb'dm.), Finspang, and Norrkop-ing (Ostg.) and worked at the can-non works, where they producedcannons for the army of Gustaf IIAdolf. Later during the 1600s theWalloons started to work at otheriron works, especially at those ownedby Louis de Geer in northern Upp-land. Here Leufsta (now: Lb'vsta),Osterby, and Forsmark were the oneswith the largest Walloon workforce.

New technology comesThe Walloons introduced new meth-ods for producing iron. They builtupright charring-stacks (kolmila) incontrast to the older method withhorizontal logs. In the charring-stack,charcoal was made for the use inblast furnaces and hammer works,and it was charcoal of the highestquality. About 70% of the Walloonswere not smiths, but worked as char-coal burners, lumbermen, or cartdrivers.

The French type of blast furnaces,all built of stone, was now alsointroduced. They were larger thanthe old type of blast furnaces thatwere partly constructed of logs. In theblast furnace (masugri) iron ore wasmelted into pig iron (tackjdrn). A newtype of forging was also introduced

A charring-stack fkolmilaj of the Walloon model in 2012.

Johan August Hubinette, one of the lastWalloon smiths.

in that a team of smelter workers(smaltare) worked at a smelterhearth in the hammer forge (ham-marsmedja) to reduce the slag in thepig iron, after which it was thenhandled in the flattening hammerhearth (rackarhammare) before itcould be made into bar iron (stang-jarn), which was the end product,ready for export. At other iron worksthe German method was used, wherethey did not use the first step withthe smelters.

Most of the Walloon iron wasexported to other countries. Most ofit was sent to Sheffield in England,where it was the basis of the pro-duction of quality steel, and tools likescissors and knives.

All bar iron was stamped with themark of the iron works (bruk), andmuch bar iron was also used in Eng-land for building purposes. AfterWorld War II many pieces of bar ironin London bombed buildings could be

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Examples of bar iron marks.

identified by the marks from whichSwedish iron works it came.

Housing and workconditionsAt the Swedish Walloon works thehouses were built as a little city withstreets and houses close to each other.Behind the houses there was a lanewith cow barns. Every household hadthe right to a place in the cow barnfor a cow, a pig, and other smallanimals. All household chores weredone by the wife.

Forsmark iron works (Uppl.)

Their wives often dressed in finecloths for the Sunday church service.If ordinary Swedish women dressedin the same way, they could be fined.

The salary was paid in kind, andthey could get necessary food itemsin the community shop, or at thetailors, or shoemakers. The "Bruks-patron" (owner of the iron works) orhis bookkeeper had the responsibi-lity of seeing that there never was ashortage of food, so the people at theiron works were not victims of fam-ine. The husband spent most of histime in the forge, and had time offonly on Sundays. When there wasenough charcoal and pig iron, theteams had to work both day andnight. This was common as early as

A hammer forge in the 1790s. Note the big hammer in the middle of the picture.

in the 1600s. The men worked forfour hours, and then rested for fourhours. The rest time was spent inthe "labby" (French l'abri= the ref-uge)", which was in the forge or veryclose to it.

In a Walloon forge the crew con-sisted of a Master Smelter (smalt-armastaren), a Journeyman Smelter(mastersvennen), and two smelterhands (smdltardrdngar) and the"goujar" (a boy who was responsiblefor getting charcoal to the hearth).

At the flattening hearth (rackar-harderi) there was the master flat-tening smith (rackarmastaren), twoflattening hands (rackardrangar),and agoujar. The master smiths weremostly Walloon, and they trainedtheir sons or sons-in-law in the craft.Marriages were with members ofother Walloon families, and they triedto give most of the work at the forgeto family members.

The Walloon surnames survived

for a long time at the Walloon iron-works, but charcoal burners, lum-bermen, and others lived outside theWalloon community and married intoordinary Swedish families, and thentheir specific surnames were con-verted to Swedish names.

The Walloon smiths had a goodreputation during the 1600s and1700s, and lived centrally in the vil-lage, close to the forges. They also hadtheir own clergymen and teachers,and schools were started in themiddle 1600s. There was also somekind of health professionals that tookcare if somebody got hurt in the forgeor other illness struck. When thesmiths became too old to work theygot a pension (gratial). Widows werehoused and fed in the poorhouse ofthe iron works. As time passed on,the workers of the iron works wereconsidered more as other industriallaborers, and some of their benefitsdisappeared.

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An interesting factDue to the very high heat in the forgewhich was needed to be able to workwith the iron under the hammers, thesmiths only wore a long white shirtand wooden shoes, even duringwinter.

' 'V' ,

Some Walloon namesAllardAnjou (Anceau, Hanseau, Hanson, le

Choux)Asser le GanieuBalletBaselierBaudouBeguinBeneux (Benoit)le BertBertrand (Bertram)de Biesmele Blanc (Blank)BodechonBombleBoudryBourguignonde BrabantBreuse (possibly Bruce)le Brun (Bernon)ButinCambouCarlier (Cayet)Cerfon (see Henrot)Chaperonle ChartonChesne

Cholletle Clerc (de Glair)CloseCochois (Cosswa)ColartCollinetle Compte (Kunt)CourtehouCouvrelCrochet (Krake)DandenelDavidle DentDidierDoctier (possibly de Coeur)DoneurDouhanDrouggeDurantEvrardde Fala (Fallan)Faverla Feuille (perhaps la Fleur)FlamentFloncarFochetFostiFrangati (van Gardy)Gaillardle Ganieu (see Asser)GenotGerquinGiers (Herceau, Jars)Godet (Gohde)Goffartde Gouiele Grand (de Grade)Gregoire (see George)le Grenadeur (see Fassin)le GrosGuillaume (Gilljam)HakinHannosetHardiHavrenneHenrotHerou (see Henrot)HubertIstaceJadonJonneauKockLalouetteLamblotde la LanneLeleuLibotte

The Wallon symbol

LochetteLouisMagnetteManietteMahyMaillotMalezieude ManheyMarechalMarlotde Marte (Marck)MartinelMathieuMeauxMelchiorMerienMichel de Jalhayle Mignonde Mombilartde la Montagnede MorgnyMoyaelde My (de Mieux, du Meit)de Nis (Dennis)Noe DonayObey (see Auber)OudinetPagard (Bagard)ParadisPasar (Poussar)PepinPhilipPierrouPira (Spira, Pirard, maybe Birath)de PlainPonceletde PorlePouillonPourel de HatrizePrevostPrivetRafflier (see Vincent)

Many more names can be found onthe web site of the special society forthe Walloons, the Sdllskapet Vallon-attlingar (Society of Walloon de-scendants) that works with research-ing their history. Their web site hasinformation in Swedish, French, andEnglish.

See links on p. 30!

Author Robert Mattson lives inSweden.His e-mail is:robert.mattson@outlook.com

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