Marriage of Jean Le Lacheur son of Jean of l’Epinel, Forest and Marie Susanne Allez daughter of Guillaume of La Carriere, Forest, parents of William, at the Forest Church.

15 October

31 October

William Le Lacheur baptized at the Forest Church. William was named after his grandfather Allez, who was also his godfather. [William is the English equivalent of the French name Guillaume.] The baptism entry reads "Guillaume fils de Jean Le Lacheur & de Marie Sara Allez sa femme ne le 15eme Octobre a ete presente au Bateme le 31eme du dit mois par le Srs. Guillaume Allez, Marie Dumaresq & N. Allez."

20 June

Birth of Rachel Le Lacheur

8 April

Birth of Judith Le Lacheur

Unfortunately nothing has yet been discovered about William’s upbringing or schooling, nor do we know why he chose to go to sea. His grandfather, his mother’s father, was a sea Captain and that may have influenced him. We believe Jean Le Lacheur, William’s father, was a farmer.

Coffee introduced into Costa Rica from Cuba and quickly becomes the principal crop.

Costa Rica gains independence from Spain and declares the country a member of the Federal Republic of Central America.

6 January

Death of William’s mother, Marie Susanne Le Lacheur, nee Allez.

Juan Mora Fernandez, Costa Rica’s first real leader and one of the first coffee exporters, comes to power.

William has become Captain of the brig ST. GEORGE, 111 tons, belonging to Vidamour & Co.

19 May

William marries Rachel Le Messurier De Jersey, daughter of Nicolas and of Marguerite Le Lacheur of St Peter Port, at the Forest Church.

Some 20 years after its introduction to the country, coffee had become Costa Rica’s major source of revenue, surpassing cacao, tobacco and sugar.

William has now become Master/Captain of the cutter MINERVA, 51 tons, belonging to Amlod & Co, and engaged in the fruit trade between England, the Azores and Spain.

Braulio Carrilo becomes leader of Costa Rica and introduces various reforms, builds new roads and repays the national debt.

William forms Le Lacheur & Co, together with Captain Grace, who was a friend. They used the cutters MINERVA and DART (57 tons), and also acted in association with Thoumine & Co.

William and Rachel are now living in a house at the top of what we call Constitution Steps, but was then called Mont Gibel.

John Allez Le Lacheur born. Two previous children, both boys, both named William, had died in infancy.

Dr Richard Brealey goes to live in Cartago .Dr Brealey appears to have been a Free Church lay preacher, possibly a Methodist. Before he died he had acquired land in Costa Rica and farmed coffee.

30 November

James Sebire applies to the Royal Court for permission to open a ship building yard near la Hougue a la Perre, St Peter Port.

30 July

The boat The LADY MANSELL was launched from Sebire’s yard. Described as a 2-masted fore and aft schooner of 104 tons, she was designed for the fruit trade.

18 June

The schooner LAVINIA was launched from Sauvarin’s yard, St Sampson's. She was used by William in the coffee trade for ten years, between 1844-1854.

23 February

The barque MONARCH launched from Sebire’s yard. Her maiden voyage was to Brazil.
She sailed in October for Texas, and returned in September 1842 from the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras.

22 July

The schooner SIR THOMAS MANSELL launched from Sebire’s yard. Built for the fruit trade, she made one voyage to Costa Rica in 184x

30 October

The MONARCH left London for Pernambuco, Brazil.

2 March

Lloyds List of London says that on this date the MONARCH left Valparaiso for Central America.

19 October

The MONARCH returned to London from Puntarenas, Costa Rica, with a cargo of coffee. This was the first cargo of Costa Rican coffee brought directly to London, instead of going via Chile.
William met the Montealegre family, one of whose sons had been educated in England and so spoke English. It is possible that they introduced him to Santiago Fernandez, one of the most important coffee producers at this time.
Fernandez accompanied William back to England with the first cargo of coffee, as the ‘supercargo’.

William returned to Costa Rica, taking the money he had made from the sale of coffee in barrels of silver sixpences. It amounted to 36,700 pesos.
The money was confiscated by the Costa Rican officials who reimbursed the coffee producers in local currency. They then overstamped some of the sixpences, superimposing the crest of Costa Rica over the face of the English coins and circulated them. It is possible that the remainder were melted down and recoined.

On subsequent voyages, at the request of the Costa Ricans William took back consumer goods like machinery, mechanical goods, and also furniture and textiles, which raised the commercial level of the country.

William was in partnership with a Captain Domaille, and they traded as Domaille & Le Lacheur.

Rev. W Wild, of Eldad Chapel in St Peter Port wrote a letter of recommendation to the headquarters of the British & Foreign Bible Society saying – “Capt. Le Lacheur is a member of my church … he is about to return to Costa Rica … I know of no man in this Kingdom of Great Britain to whom you may with more confidence entrust … Spanish bibles.”

William’s next voyage was in the LAVINIA which arrived in Puntarenas on 26 January 1845, so it is possible that Protestant scriptures were introduced to the country at this time.

William continued to take Protestant scriptures to Costa Rica. He sold the books at cost, charged neither commission nor freight, and remitted the money directly to the London, and latterly the Guernsey branch of the BFBS.

11 July

William bought the first of two houses that he eventually owned in San Jose. However William did not live in Costa Rica so it is possible that the house was bought for his Captains and officers to lodge in whilst they waited for cargoes to be loaded. The house could also have been used for religious meetings before a church was built. William opened an agency in San Jose in 1846, and it too may have operated from this house.

Dr Richard Brealey, who had settled in Cartago in 1838, devoted himself to the cultivation of the spiritual life of the growing Protestant community in San Jose.

In this year they received official permission from the government to conduct public worship.

Costa Rica declares itself an independent republic.

William presents a copy of the Bible in Spanish to President Castro as a sign of his regard for his progressive outlook.

Santiago Fernandez & Co. acted as agents for William.

The first of the specialized coffee trade ships, the COSTA RICA, a barque of 299 tons, was launched from Sebire’s yard in July.

11 May

William buys another house in San Jose, for 4,000 pesos.

The brig ESPERANZA launched by Sebire in August.

The schooner MINERVA launched by Sebire in September.

The barque AMERICA launched by Sebire in July.

William again acted as his own agent, following the death of S. Fernandez.

The barque TIMES launched by Sebire in July.

The MINERVA rescued the crew of the barque HERALD OF GUERNSEY which had been wrecked on the Falklands. The Captain drowned but his son, William Charles Jones, survived and later became one of Le Lacheur’s most famous Captains.

An army of American military adventurers led by William Walker, the self proclaimed president of Nicaragua, set out on an expedition to plunder Costa Rica. William had just sailed for England, but his Captains suspended the loading of coffee, and put their boats at the disposal of the Government. They transported the army from Puntarenas to Guanacaste in the north of the country, where they defeated Walker at the Battle of Santa Rosa on 20 March. The local newspaper the Boletin Oficial said – “the distinguished Captain Le Lacheur deserves not only the recognition of the government but of all the Costaricenses”.

William retired from the sea in this year, and moved from Guernsey to a house in Camden Town, London with his wife and family.

Dr Brealey wrote to William asking him to take £20 out of his private account and distribute it to the “naked, hungry, homeless and sick” in London.

William set up a new agency, Salazar, Montealegre & Le Lacheur, which operated for about a year.

William set up a new company, Le Lacheur & Co., which reestablished a permanent representative in Costa Rica, his son John A Le Lacheur.

The ship COSTA RICA PACKET launched by Sebire in July.

William died on 27 June after a lingering illness, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, north London. The Guernsey newspaper the Star, in its obituary gave his address as 47 Gloucester Road, Regents Park and said – “Guernsey never gave birth to a man of whom the island had more cause to be proud or who has deserved to be more lamented than him whose decease we record. By his industry and intelligence and his Christian virtues he entitled himself to the highest esteem which society can confer”.