Local History The Raymont Family by Roderick Martin


SIMON Raymont, a farrier and blacksmith, was a rough and ready man who probably had little education but like many Victorian parents both he, and his wife Elizabeth, were ambitious for their children. From the British Society School in the Plymouth Road, Tavistock all of their children did well in different ways. Harry and James became Methodist ministers, Thomas and Charles went into teaching, John worked as a farrier and blacksmith with his father, Jethro became a businessman who went to South Africa, and Simeon was a grocer, and partner in a local firm, Williams and Raymont.


The Raymonts arrived as Huguenot refugees in the 1560s and settled in Devon.


Simon


Raymont, born in 1825, came to Tavistock and set up a successful business as a farrier and blacksmith at the Forge in Taylor Square. He married Elizabeth Martin from a Congregational family whose father was in the boot-and-shoe trade. Like so many Victorians they had a large family, thirteen children, of whom only eight grew to adulthood. The family were devout Wesleyan Association Methodists who worshipping at the Russell Street Chapel, so all the children were brought up well- versed in religion. On Sundays there was Sunday School in the morning, followed by Chapel, more Sunday School in the afternoon, and Chapel again in the evening, often followed by a prayer meeting. On weekdays the children initially went as toddlers to the dame school and then at the age of four progressed to the infant’s school attached to the British and Foreign Schools Society school in Plymouth Road, Tavistock.


This


had been first established in Tavistock in 1811 by the Nonconformist churches and for many years their school building was at the higher end of West Street, facing the entrance to Rocky Hill. With help from the Duke of Bedford they built a second school in the Plymouth Road. This was officially opened in 1865 by the out-of-office prime minister and brother of the duke, Lord John Russell.


The British Schools were 26


Simon Raymont shoeing horses at the Forge in Taylor Square, Tavistock in about 1890


in the forefront of teaching large numbers of the children of working people the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, and moral conduct. It worked on a highly disciplined ‘monitorial system’ whereby a few older pupils who


“ It worked on a highly disciplined ‘monitorial system’ ..”


stayed on after the age of 12 years became monitors. And then if the pupil proved apt, pupil teachers who taught the younger pupils. Over the next four years these pupil teachers were also expected to study, under guidance from the headmaster, in their spare time,


evenings and weekends. All pupils and pupil teachers were examined annually.


It was here at the British Society School that the Raymont children began their journey through life. The oldest son, Harry born in 1850, was one of the first pupils in the new building, and was followed by James born 1854, Simeon born 1858, John (Jack) born 1861, Thomas born born 1864, Jethro born 1867 and finally Charles born 1872. There was a daughter, Mary Elizabeth born 1860, who was in the girls’ side of the school. From 1861 it became compulsory for all schools to have ‘Log Books’, regular records of the school’s activities kept by the headmaster. The Tavistock British School log book is now in the Exeter Record


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