For most of the time that the Beuzevilles were at Henley the preacher was James Churchill (1807-1913).  The names of Peter, Mary, Esther, Bridget and Marianne appear in the list of those who supported the invitation to him to minister to the church. Churchill is described by G.H.Peters as "a man of resource and enterprise" and his ministry was strongly supported by the Beuzeville family. Church records show that on 13th April, 1809 Messrs. P. Benzeville (sic) and others recommended that "the Sunday school be proposed to the subscribers".   It was, in fact, commenced on 18th July of that year with sixteen teachers from the congregation and forty-four children. In 1829 the Chapel (picture) was greatly enlarged at a cost of nine hundred and fifty-seven pounds. It was demolished in 1908.

Emma Byles recalls visiting the chapel when she was four years old. She writes "I can still (today) feel the mystery and thrill of that moment, standing aloft on a red cushioned seat, gazing on the empty pews, the high pulpit and the memorial tablets on the walls, and sniffing up the peculiar 'odour of sanctity' which churches and chapels which are shut up all the week always seem to acquire.... Sunday after Sunday I stood on the seat with my mother's arm round me and holding a book I could not read before my eyes, and when the minister prayed knelt on a hassock with my eyes towards the seat. As my elders always leant forwards with their faces on the book shelf, I had a fine time picking out the dust from the buttons of the cushions and playing games of my own".

It appears that the death of so many children had its toll on Mary, particularly the deaths of Charlotte and Samuel in 1787 from Smallpox. Her daughter Esther writes of this "By the affecting death of two children, our dear mother's constitution received a shock from which it never recovered.  She was for years gradually sinking under accumulating infirmities.

Peter died seventeen months after Mary.   Esther writes "He was taken off suddenly, though at a mature period of life, in the midst of usefulness". She writes lovingly of her parents valuing their spirituality, and influence for good.

After the death of her parents Marianne lived with her sister Bridget (Byles) until March 1820 when she moved to Oxford to live with her widowed sister, Esther who was at that time in poor health. Marianne cared for the young children and managed the household leaving Esther time to devote herself to writing in order to provide the family with an income.

Esther writes at length of the lives and deaths of her two sisters, Marianne and Bridget, in 'Memorials of Practical Piety'. She describes them both as devout Christian women who were concerned with the needs of others. 

Speaking of Marianne, who was born in 1776 and died at Henley of breast cancer 1828, in Esther states: "I shall scarcely be exceeding the strictest boundaries of truth, if I say, that she never saw human want or misery, without making some attempt to relieve or palliate it.  To render kindness, to devise kindness, seemed perfectly instinctive to her ... It was not only her prevailing desire, but her constant endeavour, that every person with whom she had intercourse should be in some way or other the better off".

Speaking of Bridget, Esther states: "She was always alive and awake to the call of duty; always active and prompt in feelings of kindness and deeds of benevolence to all with whom she was connected.  Indeed, it may be questioned whether she was ever half an hour in any person's company without devising some plan for doing them good, either in their temporal or their spiritual concerns".

Peter, Mary, Marianne and Bridget were buried in a vault under the old Meeting House which was demolished in 1908 to make way for the widening of Reading Road.  The stone was removed and placed alongside the fence which separates the present church from the Manse. The inscriptions are still legible.

A memorial plaque to the memory of Peter and Mary Beuzeville, Marianne, Bridget, Esther, Samuel and Charlotte has been placed in Christ Church (URC) Henley-on-Thames, the Congregational church that replaced the Old Meeting House. The plaque was dedicated on 19th October, 1997.

 

Christchurch, Henley-on-Thames in 2000