Robert Raikes of the population. As these schools preceded the first state funding of schools for the general public, they are seen as the forerunners of the current English school system. Robert Raikes Robert Raikes ("the Younger") (14 September 1736 – 5 April 1811) was an English philanthropist and Anglican layman, noted for his promotion of Sunday schools. Pre-dating state schooling and by 1831 schooling 1,250,000 children, they are seen as the first precursor schools of the English state school system. Raikes was born at Ladybellegate House, Gloucester, in 1736, the eldest child of Mary Drew and Robert Raikes, a newspaper publisher.
Tracy Park Robert Bush, a successful Bristol pewterer, who purchased the house in 1774 for £6,250. Bush's son, Robert, inherited the estate. Most traces of the 17th-century house were obscured when he rebuilt it and gave it a classical façade in "c". 1800. In 1820, Bush sold the estate to General Sir William Gabriel Davy (1780–1856) for £12,818, and it is his son, Rev. Charles Raikes Davy, who after inheriting the estate from his father in 1856, is responsible for the size and appearance of the house and estate seen today. Charles Raikes Davy began a program of rebuilding the mansion in