Henry Tritton Reaks

Market Place, Dover
Walmer 
Academy
Alfred House Academy
Grove House, Ramsgate

Occupation: Schoolmaster

Henry was born and baptised in St. Martin’s Herne to Henry Reaks and Elizabeth nee Tritton. Sometime before his youngest brother Thomas was born in 1800 the family moved to Canterbury where they became Methodists worshipping at the Union Chapel- Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, on Watling Street. Henry, unlike Thomas  and also their fellow schoolmaster brother James was to remain with the ‘connexion’ all his life and later even travelling from Deal to Dover’s Zion Chapel to have his children baptised.

In October 1812 Henry married Amelia Sophia Loop in St. Martins Church, Canterbury where the previous month Amelia had been a witness at her sister Caroline’s marriage to James Milner UnderdownSoon after Henry and Amelia married they moved to Market Street, Dover where Henry ran a school that proved to be so successful that four years later he had to look for larger premises. In 1816 Henry bought Walmer Academy from a Mr. Falera. Where exactly this school was is currently unknown.

By 1820 he had moved to Alfred House on Lower Street. It was this school that his brother Thomas was to take over in 1834/35 when Henry moved to Grove House in Ramsgate. He must have died soon after as we can find no further records for him after this. Certainly, when Selina Ann married in 1849 the newspaper said “…. only daughter of the late Henry Tritton Reaks, Esq. formerly of Grove House, Ramsgate”

Sources and further reading:
With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)