Notes: Paul Fourdrinier and His Descendants
The Mount Nod Engraver and the Fourdrinier Dynasty

Paul Fourdrinier, engraver, buried at Mount Nod Confirmed

Born in Groningen to Huguenot refugee parents, Paul Fourdrinier (1698–1758) trained for six years under Bernard Picart in Amsterdam before coming to England in 1720. He worked as an engraver in Westminster — portraits, book illustrations, marine-painting plates, and, from 1742, a series of military history charts, "The Succession of Colonels to all his Majesty's Land Forces." He married Susanna Grolleau, who predeceased him in 1746.

He is buried at Mount Nod, in the tomb of his wife's parents. The Huguenot Society's own account of the burial ground's 2022 renovation is explicit:

“The tomb of Lewis and Mary Grolleau also contains the mortal remains of their son-in-law, Paul Fourdrinier, 1698–1758, who was an accomplished engraver who worked in Westminster.”

The Society reads the couple's interment near Susannah's parents' grave as suggesting "they had joined them in life, before doing so in death." Fourdrinier's tomb carries an interpretive panel referencing one of his architectural engravings, a Corinthian capital design — and there is already a photo of his Mount Nod plaque in this project's files (HUGUENOT-BURIAL-GROUND/mount-nod-plaque-paul-fourdrinier.jpg).

Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier — the papermaking machine Confirmed

Paul's son Henry Fourdrinier continued the family business as a paper maker and stationer. Two of Henry's sons, also named Henry Fourdrinier (1766–1854) and Sealy Fourdrinier, commissioned and developed what became known as the Fourdrinier machine — the continuous papermaking machine that mechanised an industry previously reliant on making paper sheet by sheet, and whose basic principle is still the basis of most paper made today. The brothers ran the family stationery business at least until 1811.

Not yet chased down: the exact mechanics of the brothers' invention and financial history (they were famously ruined by it, despite its later ubiquity) would be a substantial sub-topic in its own right if this page grows into a fuller study.

Jemima Fourdrinier — sister to the papermakers, mother of Cardinal Newman Confirmed, National Portrait Gallery catalogue data

Jemima Fourdrinier (1772–1836) was a third child of this Henry Fourdrinier, and so sister to Henry and Sealy the papermakers (and to John Rawson Fourdrinier). The National Portrait Gallery's own catalogue record for her, made in connection with the group portrait "The Fourdrinier Family" (John Downman, oil on copper, c.1786), states directly: her father was Henry Fourdrinier, her grandfather was "Paul Fourdrinier (Pierre)," her siblings included Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, and her sons were John Henry Newman and Francis William Newman. She appears in the group portrait itself.

A WebFetch summary of the Wikipedia "Paul Fourdrinier" article described Jemima as his great-granddaughter rather than granddaughter — which would require an extra generation between Paul and Henry the elder that no other source found supports. The NPG's own record is treated here as the more authoritative source and this page follows it (granddaughter), but the Wikipedia article itself hasn't yet been read directly to see whether that's a genuine error there or a misreading of it in summary. Worth a direct check.

Cardinal John Henry Newman Confirmed

Jemima Fourdrinier married John Newman; their eldest son was John Henry Newman (1801–1890) — Anglican priest and leading figure of the Oxford Movement, later a Roman Catholic convert, Cardinal, theologian, and (canonised 2019) saint. A younger son, Francis William Newman, became a classical scholar. One source (a page reviewing the Newmans' 225th birthday) describes Jemima as being "of French Huguenot descent" and credits her with shaping Newman's early religious and literary formation — consistent with, though not itself naming, the Fourdrinier/Mount Nod line traced above.