Thomas Raikes Thomas Raikes Thomas Raikes ("the Elder") (28 March 1741 – 29 December 1813) was a British merchant particularly trading from London with Russia, a banker and newspaper proprietor. Notably, he was Governor of the Bank of England during the 1797 currency crisis, when the Bank was prohibited by the British Government from paying out in gold. Raikes was born at Gloucester in 1741, third son of Robert Raikes the Elder and Mary Drew. His brothers included Robert Raikes, the founder and promoter of Sunday schools, and William Raikes, a director of the South Sea Company. Raikes was Governor of the
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