Success soon palls. The joyous time is when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows.

Around 1850 he commissioned construction of a house Foxholm (now Grade II listed) on Redhill Road Cobham for the Chaplain to Queen Victoria. Following his father's death Buxton commissioned architect Samuel Sanders Teulon to design the Buxton Memorial Fountain to commemorate his father's role with others in the abolition of slavery. On 7 February 1850 he married Emily Mary Holland the eldest daughter of physician Henry Holland (physician to Queen Victoria and later president of the Royal Institution).

He later wrote a history Slavery and Freedom in the British West Indies publiCharles Buxtond in 1860. The fountain was initially erected in Parliament Square but was later moved to its current position in Victoria Tower Gardens Westminster. His son Sydney Buxton was also an MP and governor of South Africa.