Dr. Samuel Byles (1799-1856)
Dr. Samuel Byles is a nephew of
Esther Hewlett Copley (nee Beuzeville).
Born in Henley-on-Thames on 1 January 1799, he was the eldest of nine children of John Curtis Byles (1773–1853), a coal merchant, and Bridget Byles (1770–1829), daughter of Peter Beuzeville and Mary Griffith Meredith, both of French Huguenot descent.
Samuel qualified M.R.C.S. and L.S.A., and established himself in practice in Hackney Road, London, as a surgeon and man-midwife. In 1822 he married Elizabeth Barbet (1798–1875), also of Huguenot ancestry. They had one daughter and two sons, including James Cotton Byles (1838–1874), who likewise became a surgeon and general practitioner.
Dr. Byles served as surgeon to the Hospital or Asylum for Poor French Protestants and Their Descendants (incorporated in 1718), an institution supporting members of London’s Huguenot community. He also acted as surgeon to the Guardian Society Asylum, founded in 1812 to provide temporary refuge for women seeking reform and protection.
Another medical figure in the extended family was Dr. John (or James) Beuzeville Byles, FRCS (1868–1964), surgeon at the Brook Hospital, Shooter’s Hill, and a noted photographer, who was likely connected through the same Huguenot line.
Dr. Samuel Byles died in 1856, having maintained throughout his life the professional and communal commitments characteristic of London’s Huguenot-descended families.
Sources and Further Reading
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British Medical Journal, obituary of James Cotton Byles (4 July 1874), p. 24.
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Records of the French Protestant Hospital, London.
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Historical registers of the Royal College of Surgeons (M.R.C.S.) and Licentiates of the Society of Apothecaries (L.S.A.).