Guillaume Le Quiniat

Story

The Le Quiniat Story

Guillaume Le Quiniat was born in the Gšelo coastal village of Plouha, Brittany, France in October 1865 the son of Pierre Le Quiniat and Marie Reine Cartier and grandson of his namesake, Guillaume Le Quiniat born in 1788 who fought with Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars from 1808 and became a member of his ‘Grenadier de la Garde au Pieds\’ in 1814 until the time of Napoleon\’s surrender, when he returned to his hometown and married twice.

At the age of just fifteen years, following his father in a typical Breton family seafaring tradition reaching back into antiquity, young Guillaume set sail from the port of Le Havre on the 380 ton sailing ship, ‘Breiz Izel’. After sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to Sumatra they took on a cargo of sugar and headed for Melbourne. For reasons unknown, whether deliberately or by accident, Guillaume, not speaking a word of English, was found walking the streets of South Melbourne by a Mrs. Ryan, who took him in as a lodger. He later moved to Ballarat where he married Alice Maud Manton, daughter of a successful gold-miner and with her raised six children. Guillaume was now known as William Quinert and after the birth of the last child, his wife died and the younger children were then farmed out to relatives and friends. Since arriving in Australia he had taken on the occupation of hairdresser, perhaps a skill he had learnt aboard ship cutting the hair of the crew. He later moved back to Melbourne where he had a hairdressing business at 216 King Street, becoming naturalised as an Australian Citizen in 1923. On retirement in 1939 he returned to Ballarat to live with his son Bill where, despite his long affinity with Australia, and having apparently long cast aside his French connections, when Paris was lost in 1940 he was seen to fill with tears saying, ‘I am a man without a country\’. He remained with his son Bill until the time of his death in 1948.

Guillaume\’s brother in-law William Vaughan Manton was in the ‘rag trade\’ in Ballarat working for Snows and was sent by them to Sydney to open a new store. From there he came to Melbourne to open his own store, Manton\’s, in Bourke Street and perhaps it was from his influence that three of Guillaume\’s sons, William, Gilbert and Jack all worked in the drapery trade. However, with the advent of World War 1 the three eldest all enlisted and served in Gallipoli and France. Gilbert was assigned to Australian General Hospital No 2 in Wimmereux and during the war he used his right to ‘Call\’ his brother Bill to join him at the hospital, which almost certainly saved his life as Bill\’s unit was later almost completely wiped out on ‘the Somme\’. During this time during a leave break, Gil was able to visit the village of his father and met some of his cousins there. Sixty years later, along with his French-speaking wife Dianne, Gilbert\’s son, John met one of the same cousins who then took them to the birthplace and family home of his grandfather, where some still recall the visit of Gilbert from Australia during the war. Over many revisits to the area, they have eventually been able to locate and meet almost all the living descendants from Thebault Le Quiniat, the earliest recorded member of the ancestral Le Quiniat line in Plouha over four hundred years ago. The family is now spread throughout France from Brittany to Bayeux, Le Havre, Berry, Burgundy, Provence and Ile de la Reunion. Through their visits they have been able to raise the awareness of their Breton family\’s connections.

Guillaume\’s descendants in Australia now number well over one hundred and many are fascinated with an ancestry from such an interesting corner of the western world. Becoming personally aware of the fascinating culture of Brittany, John and his wife have been able to use their knowledge of the Breton culture to advantage in presenting performances of Breton dance at the Kilmore Celtic Festival where for the past ten years they have presented not only Breton dance but also the music of Brittany, performed each year by Ced le Meledo, perhaps the only traditional Breton performer in Australia. John and Dianne continue to enjoy visiting and researching their Breton ancestry and with John\’s eldest son, Luc, changing his surname back to Le Quiniat, we now have the first children born in Australia with the name Le Quiniat.

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