Wesley College from 1849 White´s Directory of Sheffield. Source: Sheffield Local Studies.
Joseph Louis was born in Paris in 1809, and by 1851 he was in Sheffield, a Professor of French at the Wesley College, and married to Frances Thompson, a Sheffield woman. The couple had three children, Isabelle, Josephine and Henriette. Isabelle died aged 12 in 1847, and the family bought a grave in the General Cemetery.
Joseph continued to work at the College for 16 years, but in 1857 he left and became a private tutor. He took out a newspaper advertisement in May 1858 to say that the rumour that he had returned to his native land was untrue, and that ‘after midsummer’ he would see private pupils at his home on Victoria Street. He continued to advertise throughout the year, but on 5 August 1859 Joseph Louis left home and killed himself with two razors on Huckleback Walk near Heeley.
At the inquest his brother-in-law, Hugh Thompson, Art Master at the Wesley College, gave evidence that Joseph had considered his work at the College too arduous, and on a number of occasions had said that if he didn’t give up his professorship, he would ‘lose the balance of his intellect’. Joseph had been expecting part of a large inheritance from an estate in France, but he had been ‘deprived’ of this. Madame Meot de Montmussard also gave evidence and said that on the morning of her husband’s death, he had left the house in a despondent state. She had wanted their daughter Josephine to accompany him on his walk, but he had ‘refused to allow her’.
The Coroner returned a verdict that John Louis had committed suicide ‘whilst labouring under temporary insanity’. He was buried in grave RR 18 in the Nonconformist area of the Cemetery which was same grave as his young daughter. At that time, the 1823 ‘Burial of Suicides Act’ stated that burials could take place in consecrated ground, but without a religious service, and only between the hours of nine and twelve at night.
You can read more about Joseph Louis and his brother-in-law Hugh Thompson in the SGCT publication Canvas of Memories. and about other emigrants who made their homes in Sheffield in Incomers: a hidden history of global connections in Sheffield General Cemetery.