Murray (Boyce)

Born in Mitcham, Surrey in 1842, Louisa Georgiana Augusta Anne Murray was the only child of General Sir George Murray and Lady Louisa Erskine, sister of the marquis of Anglesea and widow of Sir James Erskine. Her grandmother, Jane Champagne, was from a Huguenot family which had settled in Ireland. The marriage of Murray and Erskine had come with some relief, as they had (scandalously for the time) been cohabiting since 1820. When Lady Erskine's first husband died in 1825, during divorce proceedings, the two married. 

An only child, Louisa was raised in high society with strong military and political associations. Aged between three and four, she was the subject of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s painting The Flower Girl (English Heritage, Kenwood House). Her childhood was spent partly in Ireland, when her father was appointed as Commander-in-Chief, where the family lived in Dublin and at Kilmainham. As a child, she would remember being sat on the knee of that other Anglo-Irishman,  her godfather the Duke of Wellington. The family deeply was connected with the Wellington patronage circle and Waterloo traditions where her uncle, Lord Anglesea (Earl of Uxbridge), led the final cavalry charge, and of which she possessed a relic (a hair of “Copenhagen”, Wellington’s horse). Her father served in Flanders (1793-94), the West Indies 1795-96 after which he was promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1799. He then saw active service in Egypt (1801) and then as quartermaster general in Portugal under Sir John Moore (1808). In 1809 he was appointed quarter master general on Wellington's staff in Spain and Portugal,  where he possibly worked with that other member of the QM staff, Col. (later Major General) John Beckwith. From 1812-13 he served as quarter master general in Ireland, before rejoining the army in Spain until the Peninsular war ended. He was promoted major-general in January 1812 and appointed K.C.B. in September 1813. In 1814 Murray was made governor of the Canadian colonies, but during the 100 Days he obtained permission to join the army in Flanders where remained with the army of occupation as chief of staff until 1818. In 1819-24 he was governor of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and in 1823 was elected to parliament. In 1825-28 he commanded in Ireland, being promoted lieutenant-general. From May 1828 to November 1830 he was secretary of state for the colonies in Wellington's administration.  In London, the family house at 5 Belgravia Sq was less than 500 m from Apsley House, Wellington’s London residence.

With these connections, it was no surprise that Louisa developed a lifelong devotion to Crown and country. She became an indefatigable reader, with a strong devotional life centred on daily Bible reading.  'Educated in the Holy Doctrine by my pious parents,' she would remember, 'I reached the age of reason believing myself to be a true Christian'.  In 1843 (on 14 September) she married Captain Henry George Boyce of the Life Guards at St George Hanover Square London. Boyce was the eldest son of another Peninsula War alumnus, Henry Pytches Boyce (Lieutenant & Captain in the 3rd Foot Guards) and Amelia Sophia Spencer (daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough and Lady Caroline Russell.). This made him a cousin of both Lord Shaftesbury (who was a member of Gilly’s London Vaudois committee) and the Duke of Marlborough, to which Louisa was also distantly connected. Boyce was a colleague of Louisa's father, having been Murray’s aide-de-camp in 1842 and a Captain in the 2nd Life Guards.

In 1847, her husband died during a tour in Rome, after only five years of marriage. Louisa returned to Mitcham, England, and entered a prolonged and deeply felt widowhood of over 40 years, which shaped the remainder of her life. Living for some time in retirement, she was described as a “widow indeed”.

In 1862 Revd Richard Drought Graves was appointed to the parish of Mitcham. Together with his wife, they persuaded Louisa to re-engage with church life and in visiting the poor. She began to rethink her reactions to the loss of her husband: 

I began to think and recognized that the Lord had had compassion on me, that matched in my affections, I had failed in my love for Him and for those around me. So I solemnly consecrated myself to spend the rest of my life doing the Lord’s work.

Louisa founded a Bible study group, which was later instrumental in financing her philanthropic work in Italy. She also became involved in evangelical Christian circles associated with Wood Lodge, Streatham, and Beddington Rectory, where Dr. Marsh spent his final years. This period marked a transition from a life of social prominence to one of Christian service. 

In 1865 Graves became ill, receiving from doctors the advice that he spend some time in Liguria, Italy. Louisa accompanied Richard and Mrs Graves to Bordighera, where there was a burgeoning 'English Colony'. Through Swiss hotel owner James Lozeron, a 'truly zealous and devoted Christian', and his English wife at the Hotel d’Angleterre), she came into contact with a small evangelical group led by Alessio Biancheri, a convert from Roman Catholicism through Bible colportage. After a meeting in the home of the Mayor of Vallecrosia, Graves suggested to Louisa that God had not enabled her to be educated in Italian as a child, and then led to be experienced in evangelical work, by chance -- perhaps she should take up the support the group as a calling. 

I was not convinced, but Mr Graves threw himself to his knees and prayed with fervour that we may be guided, that God would clearly show us His will. 

James Lozeron proposed that he would put up half the amount needed to pay for a colporteur if Mrs Boyce would supply the other half. She accepted and contacted the Waldensian pastor in Pisa, Giovanni Ribetti. The next January (1866), she went further to support the appointment of a teacher and to open a school which taught literacy, religious instruction, and manual skills useful in supporting themselves. She then returned to England in the Spring, where she joined the Graves family at their new parish near Lichfield.

By the summer of 1866, she was back in Liguria, continuing to develop ties with Italian Protestants. Lozeron had identified, through the visit of the famed Pietist theologian August Tholuck, a promising Halle theological student, Paolo Benemann. Boyce again wrote to Ribetti, who (with her financial support) arranged for Benemann to come from Halle, complete his training in Italian, and (from March 1867) to take up the role of pastor/evangelist of the group in Vallecrosia. The school too continued to grow, and when it was relocated to a rented house in Piani di Vallecrosia, the schoolroom doubled as a chapel. Boyce was subjected to ‘a great deal of trouble and anxiety' for all the usual causes in Italian Protestant outreaches. Growth of the community meant increasing local Catholic opposition (both official and popular), Benemann struggled with the local dialect, and there were divisions among teaching and pastoral staff which matched the larger divisions between Waldensians, Methodists, Presbyterians and Free Church ecclesiologies in emerging Italian Protestantism. When the school closed (in part due to competition from a Jesuit school which had opened up nearby) Boyce supported the development of the school into an orphanage. 

In 1869 Giovanni Daniele Billour, a teacher from Bobbio Pellice with experience at Torre Pellice, was appointed and arrived with his wife Maddalena Tron. Meanwile, Boyce travelled back and forth to England, raising funds for the expansion, leading to the establishment of the Asilo Evangelico:

on 17 February 1870 Mrs Boyce spent L27,835 purchasing a building and surrounding land adjoining the Mayor’s property. Two years later she added to this by buying two more plots of land. Having spent well over L38,000, Louisa was then to go on to pay for the reconstruction work on the building which transformed it into a dormitory and workshops where the children would be taught shoemaking, carpentry and tailoring. 

By the end of 1869, the institution housed 34 children, including some from the Waldensian Valleys and Sicily.  In 1873, in an area known as Poggio Ponente, Boyce had her own villa, Bella Vista, built along with buildings which formed a permanent home for the Asilo. Four years later, the church had grown to the extent that it was elevated to the status of a parish within the Waldensian Church, with Antonio Bartolomeo Tron appointed as pastor in Bordighera.  Boyce provided housing for the pastor and went on to purchase land for a Protestant cemetery at Vallecrosia.

In 1882, the year in which the Protestant cemetery at Vallecrosia was opened, Boyce's work was sufficiently well established so as to enable her to organize a London-based 'Ladies Committee' (including Mrs. Frank Bevan, Lady Edith Ashley, Mrs Frobisher, Jane Gilly (the wife of Canon William Stephen Gilly) and a Mrs F. Paget – the wife of Louisa’s cousin). Boyce organised 'Drawing Room Meetings' in key locations (such as the house of Edith Ashley's father, Lord Shaftesbury) to raise funds. Meeting four times a year, it became vital to the Asilo’s survival, especially after (in 1887) Villa Bella Vista was rendered unusable by an earthquake. The building required reconstruction with foreign funds, and protection. At the time her cousin, Sir Augustus Paget was British Ambassador to the Italian court (then in Florence). Both he and the American Ambassador advised Louisa against seeking governmental backing: increasingly, the little complex of institutions she had built around the Asilo was drawn into the Waldensian Church for support. The Evangelization Committee of the Church, however, would only accept responsibility if there was guaranteed income. Boyce set off to raise significant support: with the help of the Ladies Committee (under Mrs Frank Bevan) and a friend, Major Frobisher, Boyce sought to find an annual sum of L15,000 for five years, followed by L10,000 for the next five years. 

Boyce ran the Asilo like a a rural squire -leaving the work to pastors, teachers and evangelists, but ensuring that her interest was well-known in committee meetings, and in representations to the Waldensian hierarchy. This latter, however, was overstretched by the demands of a new nation, and had greater concerns than Vallecrosia. There is no doubt that, in the aftermath of the 1887 earthquake, she overworked herself in her constant concern for putting the mission on a permanent basis. Nevertheless, she seemed in reasonable health as she went about her rounds. In the year, she left England for the last time, appearing worn and frail. On 17 February 1891 she was unusually ill, to the point that she could not organise the annual celebration of the emancipation of the Waldensians at the Asilo. Only three days later, on 20 February 1891, she died after a brief illness. The facilities and assets were left in her will to the Waldensian Church which, in May 1891, renamed the Asilo Evangelico as “The Boyce Memorial Home” in her honour. 

Between 1867–1911 the Asilo assisted a total of some 532 children. Many of these went on to do important work -- Giuseppe Banchetti and his sister Teresa (Novelli 2026), for instance, were orphaned in 1871, and essentially grew up in the Asilo, before going on to further education. Giuseppe became a Waldensian pastor, and Teresa a teacher in the Waldensian school system. In February 1895 Giuseppe married Elena Billour (1871–1935), daughter of the Asilo's schoolmaster, Giovanni Daniele Billour, and the couple long served in Sicily and Puglia among the poor.  In 1915 the institution changed its name to Istituto Femminile Valdese. In 1944, the building was bombed, and students were transferred to Torre Pellice. From 1950 the Waldensian Church re-established the site as an Evangelical youth centre. (Rivoira)

Sources;

'Murray, Sir George (1772–1846)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murray-sir-george-2494/text3361, published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 4 January 2026.

Novelli, Cecilia Dau, 'Protestant Churches, Female Associations, and the Condition of Women from Italian Unification to the Present Day', in M. P. Hutchinson, P. Zanini and D. Saresella, The Brill Global History of Italian Protestantism, vol. II (Leiden: Brill, 2026)

Obituary, Service for the King, A Record of Mildmay Missions, vol. XII, no. 1, p. 10

Raddon, Nicky, 'Louisa Boyce, benefactress to the Waldensians and founder of Casa Valdese of Vallecrosia (Parts 1-3), Waldensian Review, 2015-2016. 

Rivoira, Sara, 'Asilo Evangelico di Vallecrosia', Dizionario Biografico dei Protestanti in Italia, https://www.studivaldesi.org/dizionario/evan_det.php?evan_id=230