The Late Reverend Henry Valentine Peter Bronkhurst

DEATHS
PEARSON – on the 17th inst., at 21 First Street, Alberttown, FLORENCE JOHANNA, late Assistant Teachers, Christ Church School. Funeral at 4pm. Friends will please accept this the only intimation.
BRONKHURST – on the 17th instant, at his residence, Green Street, Charlestown, REV. HENRY VALENTINE PETER BRONKHURST, Wesleyan Missionary for 34 years to the East Indian Immigrants, aged 59 years. (Madras papers will please copy)
Source: Deaths - The Daily Chronicle, Georgetown, British Guiana. Thursday, July 18, 1895: page 3 Column 1.

It is with deep regret we have to record the death of the Reverend Henry Valentine Peter Bronkhurst, Wesleyan Missionary, which took place on the morning of the 17th inst., at his residence in Green Street, Charlestown. The reverend gentleman arrived in this colony thirty-four years ago as Wesleyan Missionary to the East Indian Immigrants, and has done much for the uplifting of that race. The deceased was a man of considerable learning and ability, and in 1881 he contributed several articles to the then Colonist newspapers on, “the origin of the Guyanian Indians &c,” which were afterwards re-published in pamphlet form. He also contributed to these columns several interesting papers on the East Indian race. He was the author of a book entitled, “Among the Hindus and Creoles of British Guiana.” His mortal remains were interred yesterday afternoon at La Repentir Cemetery, amidst a sorrowing crowd.
Source: The Daily Chronicle, Georgetown, British Guiana. Thursday, July 18, 1895: page 3 Column 1.

THE LATE REVEREND HENRY VALENTINE PETER BRONKHURST
TO THE EDITOR: THE DAILY CHRONICLE.
Sir, - the death of the Reverend Henry Valentine Peter Bronkhurst must come as a shock to not a few of the people of British Guiana. To-day, many like myself who have been accustomed to draw inspiration from him, and who have experienced his kindness and profited by his fatherly counsel which he was always so very ready and anxious to give, are inclined to cry out, “a great man has fallen in Israel”, and one whose place in Society made vacant by his vanished presence it is so very difficult, nay, altogether impossible, to fill. I leave it to others to dwell on the public life and career of this good man who has left us, and made us poor indeed, by his departure from our midst.
But as one who on several occasions has been privileged to sit by his side and to listen to the words of wisdom that flowed from his lips – words that have always inspired and nerved my heart, taking their throbbed with love and sympathy, I cannot refrain with the opportunity the sad occasion offers of publicly and gratefully acknowledging my great personal indebtedness to him.
The late Mr. Bronkhurst has not only benefited me personally, but a large number of my East Indian friends in the colony, who had come into direct contact with him. They have in a no mean measure been influenced for good by the sweet, stronger power, exercised over them by the deceased gentleman, and it is chiefly owing to him that they to-day hold respectable positions in the Colony. A patriot he had always been and a great lover of his countrymen and their off-spring – the Hindo-Guianese, and the many and various attempts he had made to benefit them morally and socially, and the vast amount of real good he has been the means of achieving in endeavouring to better and ameliorate the conditions of East Indians in general in this colony, will ever be a lasting and permanent memorial to his sterling character and solid worth as a man and a Christian worker.
Thanking you for space.
I am, Sir, &c.,
Joseph Ruhomon
New Amsterdam.
18th July 1895.
Source: The Late Reverend Henry Valentine Peter Bronkhurst - Correspondence - The Daily Chronicle, Georgetown, British Guiana. Sunday, July 21, 1895: page 8 Columns 6/7.