St Mary’s church in the riverside village of Waterperry is not strikingly pretty, not large, not distinguished architecturally from the outside. It is what it is: a rustic parish church in a small village. Yet a gorgeous Francis Chantrey (1781 – 1841) monument can be found inside. The monument sculptured in 1821 is in memory of Anna Maria Rooke Greaves, who died 24th March 1819 aged 27, leaving an only child aged six months.
At the time Chantrey was the leading sculptor in England, and was commissioned by the royal family, the aristocracy and, indeed, everyone who was rich and famous, to produce busts, statues, and monuments. He was prolific, his work had a naturalistic style that seemed sympathetic to the human condition and, like all great artists working in marble, it is remarkable how he turned hard stone to soft flesh and garments.
And what a beautiful monument it is, which John Todd, once vicar of the parish to write, ‘it is not altogether in harmony with its medieval surroundings.’ Although this may be true, the monument neither serves to undermine the church’s simple interior nor does it suffer from its surroundings. And of course, Chantrey would have had no inkling of what the surroundings were like, and probably would not have cared.
In its humble surroundings the monument does indeed stand out. Indeed it is almost a shock to come across it for the the first time. What interested me therefore was who were the family and could I find out more about how this monument came to be here. After all, this was an expensive memorial to commission.
The church lies adjacent to the manor house; in fact it is uncharacteristically close, and is older than the house that currently stands there: this has parts that are Tudor but it was significantly remodelled in the early part of the 18th century (and then later in the 19th century.)
Anna’s father Joseph Henley bought the house in 1814, and he, his wife Anne (nee Rooke), Anna and their sons moved in. Henley was a successful and wealthy merchant in the shipping trade, and hailed from Wapping, London. The family business, Michael Henley & Sons was one of the leading traders in the port of London and, at one time, the family owned over 100 ships that shipped goods to the world. Anne Rooke came from another family involved with shipping, and she and Joseph had married in 1791.
Their daughter Anna had been born in London in 1792, and so was a young woman when she arrived in Waterperry in 1814; within four years she was married to George Greaves.
Greaves was originally from Yorkshire, and came from a landowning family. He was born in Page Hall, Yorks in 1790. How the two met is unknown as, at the time of the marriage, he was possibly studying at Corpus Christie, Cambridge. (See below as there is some conflicting information on this.)
Anna and George married in Waterperry church on 20 July 1817, the same year that her father was serving as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. (Her brother Joseph Warner Henley would marry in the same church five months later.)
After the wedding, George and Anna lived in Kingston House, Kingston Bagpuze, a house they rented. But, as can be seen in the inscription on the monument, she died in Hesley, in fact Hesley Hall. This was another ancestral home of the Greaves family, and George and Anna may have been visiting his parents when she died. The cause of death is unknown but it is possible that she was once again pregnant, there were complications, a miscarriage, and this led to her death.
The child that is mentioned on the monument as being barely 6 months old is Henley George Greaves, and if she was pregnant again then she would be less than five months into the term.
The monument was ordered by her widowed husband probably in 1819 but was not executed until 1821. It appears in Chantrey’s ledgers and a transcript is below.
The total cost was £600, which in today’s money is worth around £65,000. It is likely that Chantrey suggested the design and while we now cannot tell, we can assume that the figures are based on Greaves and his now dead wife.
Their son Henly is depicted as a baby on the monument. Henley Greaves went on to study at New College Oxford, married in 1841, and died in 1872. In part his early death was because – as is seen in several records – he was overweight. His profession is not recorded in the census but it is known that he had a love of fox hunting and was Master at several hunts. He most likely lived off the family wealth.
By the time of his death, he was living in Western House, Winslow which his son then inherited. This son too died when relatively young in his early 50s, and had no children. There was also a daughter, Maria Elizabeth, who is known to have married and had two sons.
Conversely, Anna’s widowed husband went on to live to a greater age than his son and grandson, and was 70 when he died in 1860. While there is some confusion about his life story. His probate record is clear.
As can be seen in the work done on researching Chantrey’s ledger he was a JP and Deputy Lieutenant of West Riding, Yorkshire. This along with the probate suggests that he possibly returned to the county after his wife’s death, and remained living there for the rest of his life.
However there is another record that says he spent much of his life as a parish priest. This comes from the Cambridge University Alumni records. and in 1833 had remarried to Elizabeth Toplis. They of course could both be correct but they don’t immediately reconcile and indeed having found the George Greaves curate at Herne Bay noted below, it is a George Greaves who was born in London.
I suspect that this alumni record is incorrect and that it has muddled two George Greaves.
Drawing this all together my own conclusion is that Anna’s widowed husband returned to Yorkshire and lived out his life on the family estates. Their son led a rather indulgent life, did little other than ride the hounds, and died relatively young. Anna’s father continued to live in Waterperry House until his death. One of her brothers then took over the house, and became known for his public service. Finally, the Henley family continued to own Waterperry House until the 1920s when they sold it, leaving behind their graves in the churchyard, and monuments in the church.
Sources:
Dictionary of National Biography
Cambridge University Alumni.
@japanauthor on Twitter
Graham Thomas 
[…] monument for Anna Maria Rooke Greaves. 1821. A fuller post dedicated to the monument can be found here. The nave. The pew boxes date from C18 and still have their original brass candle sticks. Looking […]