Roger Conant is barely mentioned in books about his home county. The only family member listed in Prince’s 1810 'Worthies of Devon' is Roger’s nephew, the clergyman and theologian John Conant (1608-1694).
Etching of Hayes Barton, by the American artist Francis Kelly (1927-2012)
In the 1930s, visiting Raleigh’s birthplace of Hayes Barton which is just a mile or so to the west of East Budleigh, the author and journalist Arthur Mee, in typically patriotic vein, told readers of his book about Devon in his celebrated series 'The King's England': ‘Here the dream began which has become the British Empire.’
In East Budleigh’s All Saints Church Mee was struck by the sight of the stained glass window in memory of Admiral Preedy, captain of HMS Agamemnon. This was the ship which in 1858 laid the first Atlantic cable uniting England to America, the subject of Fairlynch Museum's 2017 exhibition.
‘Strange it is that it should be here in the village of Raleigh’s boyhood dreams,’ he mused, ‘for who can think of America without thinking of Raleigh’s Virginia?’
Other writers, including local author Eric Delderfield in his book 'The Raleigh Country' (1949), were drawn to write about the better known Devonian.
But of Roger Conant they wrote not a word!
Yet both Devonians retained a deep affection for their birthplace. Long after he had left East Budleigh, in 1584, Raleigh tried unsuccessfully to buy Hayes Barton, ‘for naturall disposition I have to that place, being borne in that howse.’
Seal of the city of Beverly, MA
Similarly, some 48 years after leaving England, Roger Conant petitioned to change the name of the Massachusetts coastal community of Beverly, where he had settled. He preferred ‘this western name of Budleigh, a market town of Devonshire and near unto the sea as we are here, in this place and where myself was born.’
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