The Father of Costa
Rica Coffee and the
Costa Rica Church
By: Boake Moore
William Le Lacheur was
born on 15 October 1802
and was baptized
Guillaume Le Lacheur
(using the French
version of the forename)
in the parish church of
the Forest, Guernsey on
31 October by his
parents Jean Le Lacheur
and Marie Suzanne (née
Allez). He was named
after his grandfather,
Guillaume Allez, who was
also one of his
godparents.
Le Lacheur is widely
credited in Costa Rica
as having transformed
the economy of this
Central American country
by establishing a direct
regular trade route for
Costa Rican coffee
growers to the European
market, thereby helping
to establish the Costa
Rican coffee trade and
development of gourmet
coffee in Costa Rica. He
set up the market and
the trade routes that
allowed the coffee
business to bloom and
flourish.
Little is known of his
education and
upbringing. At a young
age, he went to sea,
working his way up to
become the captain of
his first ship, St
George in 1827. William
married Rachel de Jersey
(1798–1882) in parish
church of the Forest,
Guernsey on 19 May 1828.
They had five children:
Rachel, Emma, Amelia,
John and Louisa
The Start of Costa Rica
gourmet coffee and
coffee trade: After
sailing for 3 years and
building a good shipping
route and building up
some capital to expand
his shipping business he
decided to expand his
business.
In 1830 he entered the
Azores fruit trade with
the ship Minerva. By
1836, he had formed a
company Le Lacheur & Co,
which owned two ships:
Minerva & Dart. Over the
following years, he
continued to add to his
fleet, and seek out new
markets. In 1841, Le
Lacheur took delivery of
the barque Monarch. The
Monarch was a much
larger vessel capable of
journeys further afield.
During a stop at the
port of Mazatlan, on the
Pacific coast of Mexico,
he learnt from the
British Consul of the
difficulty that the
Costa Rican coffee
growers were having in
finding a market for
their produce.
Since their
independence, Costa Rica
found no regular trade
routes for their coffee
and European markets.
This was compounded by
transportation problems.
The coffee-growing areas
were located in the
central part of the
country, and it was
impossible, because of
the mountains and the
rainy forest, to send
the coffee to the
Caribbean Sea and
therefore to the
Atlantic. It was a lot
easier to ship the
coffee to a Pacific
port, Puntarenas, and to
sail around Cape Horn to
the Altlantic. It was
before the Caribbean
railway from San José to
the Caribbean and the
Panama Canal were built.
William saw a business
opportunity, and agreed
with Costa Rican coffee
growers to establish a
regular service to carry
their coffee to London.
In 1843, the Monarch
arrived in the Costa
Rican port of Puntarenas,
and loaded the first
cargo of nearly 5,000
bags of coffee. The
venture was a success,
and he began increasing
the size of his fleet to
accommodate the
increasing demand for
coffee in London. During
the rest of the 1840s,
he diverted his other
ships from the fruit
trade to the coffee
trade. Then starting in
1850 he commissioned the
construction of five
ships designed
especially for the
coffee trade. During the
1860s, a further seven
ships were added to the
fleet.
In addition to his
contribution to the
Costa Rican economy
through establishing
trade routes, Le Lacheur
made a significant
impact on the
development of a number
of other aspects of
Costa Rica.
Church coffee - Le
Lacheur, a devout
Christian, was appalled
by what he described
"the lowest form of the
Roman faith" being
practiced where
superstition took
precedence over true
religion. Through the
British and Foreign
Bible Society, he
obtained and distributed
Spanish Language bibles,
thereby introducing
Protestant faith into
Costa Rica. As a result
he distributed 3,500
bibles in Costa Rica,
and was presented with
an inscribed Imperial
Quarto Bible by the
Bible Society in
recognition of his
achievements.
In 1864, the year after
Le Lacheur's death, it
was resolved to build
the first Protestant
church in Costa Rica. It
was made of
pre-fabricated iron, was
carried to Costa Rica by
Le Lacheur's son John
and was assembled in San
José as the Church of
the Good Shepherd. It
became unofficially
known as the 'Iron
Church'. When it was
rebuilt in 1937 with
more traditional
materials, a memorial
plaque was erected to Le
Lacheur with an
inscription which
includes the phrase ' by
whose exertions public
Protestant worship was
established in this
Republic '.
Once Le Lacheur had
established a fleet of
ships that were
regularly making
journeys between Costa
Rica and London, he
arranged with several
Costa Rican families to
take their sons to
England for their
education. This has been
cited as a contributing
factor to Costa Rica's
economic success.
This arrangement was
also responsible for the
introduction of the game
of football to Costa
Rica. Through this Le
Lacheur has also been
credited with
contributing to Costa
Rica national team
qualifying for the 2002
FIFA World Cup.
When William Walker, an
American filibuster,
attempted to invade
Costa Rica in 1856, the
Costa Rican government
declared war. However,
the march from the Costa
Rican military base in
San José to the northern
border was an arduous
one.
Le Lacheur put his ships
at the disposal of the
Costa Rican military
commanders to transport
the army up the coast to
the border so that they
would arrive fit and
ready to fight. As a
result, they
successfully repelled
the filibusters.[
He is buried in Highgate
Cemetery in London.
There is a Memorial to
Captain William Le
Lacheur of Guernsey in
the Church of the Good
Shepherd, San José,
Costa Rica. Postage
stamps have been issued
commemorating his
achievements by both his
native Guernsey (1997)
and Costa Rica (1963).
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