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Author: Bastien, P.

Biography:

BASTIEN, P. (fl 1825)

Confirmation is wanting but internal evidence from the book makes possible a tentative identification. The author was a French-speaking carpenter who lived in London and wrote about his love for “Sarah B.” Likely he was Peter Bastien, born in London on 11 Jan. 1795 to Jacques Bastien and his wife Rachel Fauney. He was baptised on 8 Feb. 1795 in the French Huguenot church on Threadneedle Street, London. He became a cabinet maker in Bethnal Green, London, and on 6 Oct. 1817 married Sarah Elizabeth Bay in St. Luke’s, Old Street. Their son Peter Henry was born on 6 Nov. 1818; they had at least eight more children. The 1851 Census shows Peter living alone at 42 Gibraltor Walk, Bethnal Green; Sarah was living with her father, William Bay, and five children in Helmet Row, Old Street. A sighting of Peter Bastien is when he was admitted to the Raine Street Workhouse on 6 Nov. 1863; records indicate that he was destitute. He is recorded as the bride’s father on the marriage certificate of his daughter Emma on 5 Oct. 1865. Almost certainly he was the Peter Bastien who died of dementia in the Bethnal Green workhouse on 5 Apr. 1868. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Jan. 2023; contribution from AA [death certificate])

 

Books written (1):

London: for the author by T. Lester, J. Lee, and George Pigott, 1825