After the RN College was closed temporarily in 1837 Henry spent three terms at St. John’s College, Cambridge, before returning to the newly reopened college where he was mathematical master from 1839 to 1866. In 1840 he became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and in 1848 he published "Handbook for the Stars". He was also the author of books on plane and spherical trigonometry, navigation, and nautical astronomy. According to Alumni Cantabriensis Henry taught "for some time" at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich before he retired.

In 1866 Henry was elected churchwarden to Reverend Francis Seymour of St. Faith’s church, Havant. He and his wife, Susan were by now living in Langstone House, next door to Susan’s two remaining sisters, Jane and Catherine. Susan, who was born in Langstone in 1808, was the daughter of Thomas Bayly Silver, a trustee of Havant Independent Chapel. He died in 1819. Susan’s maternal grandfather, Richard Philpott, was a trustee of the Presbyterian Chapel in Chichester. However, in 1838 Susan, aged 31, and her sister Catherine, aged 34, were baptised as adults at St. Faith’s church and on 23^rd June 1846, two years after her mother’s death, Susan married Henry Jeans there. They lived in Portsmouth until Henry retired.

In 1868 Susan and Henry were left £1,000 by Thomas Temple Silver the younger, an ironmonger and iron merchant of Woodbridge, Suffolk. Susan and Thomas were both great-grandchildren of Thomas Silver, cider merchant, who died in Havant in 1781. Soon after receiving this bequest, Henry and Susan who were both in their sixties and childless, embarked on building a large and distinctive extension to the property now known as Langstone Towers, together with an adjoining chapel. The attractive cupola on the house appears to have been modelled on the one at the RN College in Portsmouth. Part of the original house was pulled down in the 1960s to make way for two new houses.

When Henry died on 23^rd March 1881, aged 76, his obituary in the Evening News stated that he was "highly respected in this district and spent a large sum of money in the erection of a small church where he himself held frequent religious services. He was assisted in this good work by the clergy of Havant. We understand that the services will not be interrupted as provision has been made by Mr Jeans for a sufficient endowment. Poverty was almost unknown in the village near his house and his demise will be bitterly regretted by all of his poorest neighbours." Among the mourners at Henry’s funeral were representatives of the Portsmouth Beneficial Society, of which he had been an honorary member for nearly sixty years, together with twelve senior pupils of the Beneficial School, founded in 1784 to educate some of Portsmouth’s poorest children.

Susan Jeans died in April 1887, aged 79. Under the terms of Henry’s will all their real estate was auctioned, except for the chapel. The sale included several properties and forty-five acres of land, in Langstone, about half of which had been inherited by Susan when her mother died in 1844.

It was quite usual in those days for larger houses to have a private chapel, in which members of the family and servants would assemble for morning prayers, conducted by the head of the household.  But there seems to have been more to Langstone chapel than that.  A plaque on the wall states that "This building is set apart for religious teaching and erected to the revered memory of Thomas Temple Silver, of Woodbridge, Suffolk, who died May 6th 1868".  This form of words suggests that the chapel was intended to serve a missionary purpose.  Other evidence pointing in the same direction is the reference in Kelly's Directory of 1880 to "a chapel erected by H W Jeans Esq (Susan's husband) to seat about 50 persons".  This sounds as though the chapel was used from the beginning  for public worship.

The 1897 Havant Almanack shows that services at the Mission Chapel, Langstone, were being held on Fridays at 7.30 p.m. and Sundays in winter at 6.30 p.m. but the Rector’s Review of that year stated that the services were "not quite appreciated". By 1901 the services were being well used and in the 1920s, the Rector started a Sunday school which was run by Miss Doris Norkett who was known as "Norkie". She had about twenty pupils, mainly from the cottages in Langstone High Street. "Norkie" would arrive with her bicycle laden with materials and the children would spend the morning singing hymns, listening to Bible stories, drawing pictures and making models.

Although the chapel has never been consecrated, it was once the scene of a wedding, when, on 27^th April 1926 Charles Longcroft, a well-known local solicitor, married Ethel Russell of Langstone House. Ethel’s father, Henry, was an oyster merchant and ran his business from the premises next door to Langstone House, now known as the Winkle Market.