Henry Usborne, MA. Vicar of Bitterne, Hants.    
Born March 4th 1811.
Educated Eton (1826) and Balliol College, Oxford (1828).
Married December 27th.1847 to Grace, daughter of Philip Corbett of Shrewsbury.
Grace died June 12th 1888.
Henry died June 29th 1892. Buried at Bitterne      
  
 
   Carving on panel  at Eton 
  by Henry.
Both buried in pink grave 
in the foreground.

Redcote Vicarage
which Henry built in 1860.
Demolished 1978.

   Bitterne  parish church
Henry
the clergyman 		Henry 
the businessman 		Henry the land-owner   Henry the trans-Atlantic commuter
It is hard to believe that Henry, the Canadian timber entrepreneur is one and the same person as Henry the country vicar. At 37 Henry was head of the Usborne family timber interests in Quebec.
The Quebec Gazette of August 1833 reported his success with his racing yacht Algerine.
His father acquired the Midanbury estate, at Bitterne, nr. Southampton in 1850 which he shared with Henry and his sisters Harriet and Eliza. The move was probably to take advantage of the modern docks built in 1843 and numerous timber stores that lined the river Itchen. 

In 1852, with his sisters, he bought the land and paid most of  the cost (£3,100) of the new Parish Church of the Holy Saviour. He was its first vicar (1856-1887). In 1860 he built Redcote Vicarage. "He was an earnest preacher but had a stammer and was not always easy to hear. He used to ride horseback to church but later came in a carriage and pair driven by his coachman. His portrait in oils which hung in the Church Institute was destroyed by enemy action in 1941." 
He made daily visits to the children at Bitterne's first infant school which his sister had built in 1856. There are many entries in the school log such as:
"Rev.H. took the children to the pantomime and gave them buns and oranges" and "gave the girls a treat of strawberries". He was clearly much loved and still remembered.

Henry was, in 1876, one of the principal landowners in Western under Penyard in Herefordshire between Ross and Gloucester.
Henry and Grace

Barnaby Usborne has two leather-bound volumes of Henry's 1866 "Sainte Bible illustree par Gustave Dore". They have a gold  monogram HL on the cover and an engraved book-plate inside.