Charles Buxton


Charles Buxton was an English brewer, philanthropist, writer and member of Parliament.

Personal life and architectural legacy

Buxton was born on 18 November 1822 in Cromer, Norfolk, the third son of Sir [Thomas Buxton, 1st Baronet], a notable brewer, MP and social reformer, and followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a partner in the brewery of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, & Co in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London, and then an MP. He served as Liberal MP for Newport, Isle of Wight, Maidstone and East Surrey. His son Sydney Buxton was also an MP and governor of South Africa.
On 7 February 1850, he married Emily Mary Holland, the eldest daughter of physician Henry Holland, 1st Baronet|Henry Holland].
Around 1850, he commissioned construction of a small detached, but ornate, house, Foxholm on Redhill Road, then in Wisley but now in Cobham, for the Chaplain to Queen Victoria.
On 4 May 1860 he was commissioned Lieutenant in the part-time 3rd (Truman, Hanbury, Buxton) Tower Hamlets Rifle Volunteer Corps raised by his nephew Sir [Fowell Buxton, 3rd Baronet] from employees of the family brewery. The unit became part of the 1st Administrative Battalion, Tower Hamlets Rifle Volunteer Corps in which Charles Buxton became Major and then Lieutenant-Colonel on 1 June 1861. He left the unit in the later 1860s but was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 1st (Poplar) Tower Hamlets Artillery Volunteer Corps on 15 August 1870.
In 1860 he had his own house, Foxwarren Park, built on the neighbouring estate between a golf course and the Site of Special Scientific Interest which is Ockham and [Wisley Commons]. It is a Grade II* listed building. The building is stark Neo-Gothic: polychrome brickwork, red with blue diapering, and terracotta dressings, renewed plain-tiled roofs with crow-stepped gables.
He died on 10 August 1871. His probate was sworn in 1871 in a broad bracket of "under ".
His younger son was first and last Earl Buxton: Sydney Buxton, 1st Earl Buxton.

Anti-slavery parliamentary campaigners' memorial fountain

Following his father's death, Buxton commissioned architect Samuel Sanders Teulon to design the Buxton Memorial Fountain to commemorate his father's role, with others, in the abolition of slavery. The fountain was initially erected in Parliament Square but was later moved to its current position in Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster. It carries the dedication:

Published works

He produced Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Baronet, with Selections from his Correspondence, first published in 1848. He later wrote a history, Slavery and Freedom in the British West Indies, published in 1860.