Place Name
Richard Benyon De Beauvoir (1769 – 1854) was an MP, philanthropist and High Sheriff of Berkshire – who had the very good fortune to be the heir of many of his relatives’ estates. On August 22 1796, his father, the MP Richard Benyon died “of the gout in his stomach” leaving him estates in Essex and Berkshire worth £8,000 a year (worth about £1m in today’s money). A few years later, in 1779, he succeeded to the estates of his half-uncle Powlett Wrighte of Englefield House. He assumed the name of Richard Powlett-Wrighte; and, in 1822, after the death of his distant relative, the Reverend Peter De Beauvoir, a Rector from Essex, from whom he inherited very large property, both in estates and in the funds, he assumed the name of Richard De Beauvoir. Among those estates was land around this area, which had been leased for development a few years earlier to builder William Rhodes, the grandfather of Cecil Rhodes. Although Benyon was married, to Elizabeth Sykes, the only daughter of Sir Francis Sykes, of Basildon Park in Berkshire, he died without having any children. His estates were inherited by his nephew, Richard Fellowes, who also took on the Benyon name. Many of the street names in the area are connected with the Benyon family.
