Rev. Samuel Beuzeville (1717–1782)
Huguenot Refugee • Oxford Scholar • Minister of the French Church
Rev. Samuel Beuzeville was a great-uncle of Esther Beuzeville and a significant figure in the Huguenot community of eighteenth-century London. His life bridges Normandy and Spitalfields, persecution and scholarship, exile and ecclesiastical service.
Escape from France
The manner of the family’s escape is recorded in The History of Merchant-Taylors’ School, attributed to Rev. G. Paroissien of Hackney: "His father, having banalced his
family as well as he could in a pair of panniers on a horse, took his journey towards the coast, travelling through the woods to avoid the pursuit of men more inhuman than the brute on which they rode. Before they had proceeded any great way, little Samuel fell out of the basket. But this only served to call forth from the pious parent a fresh expression of dependence on the preserving hand of Providence.” Whether embellished or not, the account captures the peril faced by Huguenot families fleeing persecution.
Education at Merchant Taylors’ School
Samuel was admitted to Merchant Taylors’ School in Suffolk Lane, London, on April 13, 1730, when John Criche (1680–1760) was Headmaster. Criche was described as a diligent and well-grounded scholar, though somewhat eccentric.
Samuel quickly distinguished himself. It was recorded that: “From the Petty Form to the Prompter’s Bench his progress was satisfactory to every master to whom he passed.”
Wilson later observed that never had the openness of the foundation been more clearly demonstrated than in supplying this “young Norman, and many other refugees, the means of acquiring that Protestant education which the intolerance of the ruling powers denied them in their own country.”
Samuel’s education stands as a striking example of the integration of refugee families into English institutional life.
Oxford and Ordination
On September 30, 1758, Samuel graduated from St John’s College, Oxford, and took Orders in the Church of England.
He officiated at Sutton, Bramdean, Standon, and Bristol, where he was chosen Minister of the French Episcopal Church. He was later invited to take charge of the congregation belonging to the French Church of St John in the Parish of St Matthew, Bethnal Green, where he preached the dedicatory sermon on the occasion of its opening.
In 1764 he married Elizabeth Ourry (1725–1811) at St Matthew’s Church, Bethnal Green. Elizabeth was the daughter of Louis Ourry of Blois (1682–1771) and Ann Louise Beauvais. They had one daughter, Elizabeth Charitie Beuzeville, who later married Thomas Lempriere of Jersey.
Elizabeth Ourry (1725-1811)
Burial and Memorial
Samuel is buried in the churchyard of St Dunstan’s, Stepney. Although he served at the French Church of St Jean, Spitalfields, it is likely he was buried at St Dunstan’s because his parents were interred there.
On January 17, 1782, a memorial service was held at the French Church of St Jean at Spitalfields. The sermon was preached by Reverend Jean Moore, an Anglican minister.
Will and Legacy
Samuel’s will, dated February 12, 1772, was proved on January 23, 1782, by his nephew Peter Beuzeville, the surviving executor. Though unwitnessed, the handwriting was sworn to by William Beloncle of Tower Hamlet and John Marplay of St Botolph, Bishopsgate.
He bequeathed £500, together with his household furniture and library, to his widow, and left “my capital in my brother Stephen’s land” to his daughter. Among smaller bequests was five pounds to “The poor Protestants of Bolbec, the place of my nativity.”
Due to favourable exchange rates, this sum—combined with a bequest of two hundred pounds from Jacques Guillemard—helped finance the building of the Protestant church in Bolbec in 1797.
Thus, the refugee child whose family had fled persecution contributed, even after death, to the rebuilding of Protestant worship in his native town.
Sources
H. B. Wilson, The History of the Merchant Taylors’ School (London: C. and J. Rivington, 1814).
Images:
Samuel Beuzeville: Family archives, edited by Nola Whitrow, South Australia.
Elizabeth Ourry: Archives of Marion H Clark.
Funeral Notice, source unknown.
Embroidery of Charitie Beuzeville, his daughter, is in the library of Ralph Byles.
Embroidery of Charitie Beuzeville, only daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth. Original in the library of Ralph Byles, South Australia.