RAY-JONES FAMILY WEBSITE
Our father, Raymond Ray-Jones, Painter Etcher, in his studio near St Ives,
Cornwall, in 1940
The red 'New' button on the left
provides some information about our present-day family, also about what's new
on this site. Most of the site is historical, and will be of interest to Chaplins, Pearces,
Skinners, Hardings, Welchers, Dants, Joneses, Hursts, Macleans, and present members of other
families mentioned in these pages. I would be delighted to hear from you - to email me please
go to the end of this page.
Site online December 2002 - last updated
January 2008
Alan Ray-Jones.
Me
My first enthusiasms were cycling and cross-country
running, then architecture and landscape architecture, later services for architects and the role of
classification in architectural libraries and project management, then international collaboration
in the building industry, then sailing, computers, photography, genealogy and web design. This
may suggest a certain lack of focus! I was an architect, a member of the Royal Institute of
British Architects (RIBA), and worked as one for ten years from 1955 to 1965. For the next
thirty years I worked for the RIBA itself, - first as Head of the Technical Section in Portland
Place, and finally, from 1969, as Technical Director - one of three founder staff members - of
RIBA Services Ltd. The company is now part of RIBA Enterprises Ltd, which produces many kinds
of information for the building industry.
I had a link to my political blog here for a while in 2005. When I deleted the blog I didn't delete the link at the same time, and the blog URL was taken by someone else, with an interest in the web's favourite subject. Please accept my apologies if you clicked on the link here before I got rid of it!
My wife Elizabeth and I have four children. First
Sue, then Johnny, then Michael, and last Merie, each now with their own families. We have ten
grandchildren. Sue's children are Jenny and Anthony. Johnny's are Orion and Tai, who have an
older brother, Mark (their mother is Carol). Mike's children are Simon and Helen.
Merie's are Colin and Paul and their younger brother Matthew. Elizabeth has an older sister,
Eileen; and I have a younger brother, Philip, who has two daughters - Sarah and Rachel - and two sons - Simon and Robin - by his first marriage; and three daughters - Veryan, Damsyn, and Madlyn - by his second marriage. My other brother was Tony Ray-Jones, photographer - see Google.
*Click on the 'New' button on the left for more information
on the family and a note on 'identity theft'........
Family History
My mother left me a plastic envelope full of yellowing
letters in spidery handwriting, which lived in a damp cupboard in our Somerset farmhouse for twenty
years. When I retired and had time, I decided to transcribe them to computer for safe keeping, and
was fascinated by what I discovered in them - a lot of detail about relatives I hardly knew I had.
As a result, I became interested in setting down whatever I could find out about our forbears. To
find out more click on the family you are interested in: Chaplin, Gould, Gregory,
Ray...Jones (for my father and his parents
and grandparents), Pearce (for my mother's family and the grandparents I
knew well), and Skinner - for our most exotic roots. Also Welcher, my wife's family. I will be very interested to have additional
information concerning anyone mentioned on these pages, which show only a tiny fraction of the
information I have so far assembled.
Photography
I was interested in photography when young, but let
it lapse while working in the building industry, taking it up again when I neared retirement. I got
my LRPS (Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society) through short courses at Westminster
University. but my efforts are strictly amateur and unserious at present.
My
youngest brother, Tony Ray-Jones, born in 1942, was a well known professional photographer in the nineteen sixties and died of
leukaemia in 1972, when he was only thirty years old. The photo on the left was taken in New
York in 1965 by Bill Jay, then Editor of Creative Camera, who built up a splendid collection of
photos of photographers of that period. I think Tony must have been asked to strike a distinct
pose - it maybe shows something of his character, which was certainly not conformist.
The link below is to the The National Museum of Photography Film &
Television at Bradford, which holds all his negatives and the copyright in his photographs. A
retrospective exhibition of Tony's work was held at the NMPFT in 2004-2005. The latest book about him - by Russell Roberts - and many of Tony's photos, can now be bought online from the National Media Museum.
To contact me, click here