Hippolyte Lemarchand (1829-1898)

Hippolyte Lemarchand was born in Cailly on August 24th 1829. His father was the first clerk to the notary in the office of Me Mauger in Clères, then clerk of the justice in the canton of Clères in 1823.

Hippolyte became a surveyor in 1851 and then was named clerk of the justice, succeeding his father, by decree on July 10th 1864. He then came to live in Clères and continued in this role until 1877. Following the death of mayor Pierre Nicolas Mauger, Hippolyte Lemarchand was named mayor by Presidential decree on July 27th 1877. On August 2nd he was installed as mayor with François Renoux as his deputy. He was regularly re-helected up until his death in 1898.

Among his great achievements figures the cantonal museum-library set up in the Clères town-hall and subsequently above the covered market, “The creation of the communal library in Clères dates back to September 1881. The cantonal library was founded under the patronage of Monsieur Hendlé, prefect of lower Normandy, in January 1885”.

On December 31st 1899, the museum housed 2413 volumes and 300 brochures. On the same date in 1718 it included 1718 objects (paintings, old ceramics, roman pottery, minerals etc.) and about 525 tokens, coins and medallions.

Hippolyte Lemarchand also initiated the creation of the local education office, municipal music school, the boys’ school and the new church in the shade of which he lies, having never seen its final construction.

He also drew up a handwritten information document for each of the 22 communes in the canton of Clères, some of which are now dispersed or lost, and a five-volume summary, the first four volumes of which were found in a flea-market by Patrice Bizet and published by Pucheux in 2002 under the title ‘A History of the Canton of Clères’.

This was a considerable and long-winded piece of work. For years he assembled all the documents he needed, studying birth certificates, land registers and old notary papers and textbooks.The archives of 22 communes in the canton provided details along with departmental archives and even those from the National library in Paris.

We mentioned above that he was devoted to the little town of Clères and we can happily provide proof of this in relating a statement written in the municipal register on November 17th 1898 in which, after having cited the innumerable services rendered to the town the members of the town council unanimously and very movingly proclaimed ‘That M. Lemarchand deserved the commune of Clères, that he received respect and affection from everybody and that he takes with him into the tomb the sincere regrets of the council and of all of the population’.

This posthumous hommage really simply reflected public opinion, the distress expressed by the local population who could not hold back their tears as they followed the funeral procession of the man so cordially revered.