English: 19th century memorial brass tablet in hall of South Molton Primary School, North Street, South Molton, Devon, inscribed as follows:
- "The South Molton United Schools. These schools were united in 1877 and consist of:
- I: Squier's School, endowed by Hugh Squier in 1682;
- II: the Blue-Coat School, established in 1711 and endowed by Henry Blagdon, Elizabeth Squier, Thomas Tapper, Elizabeth Northcote, Sarah Aram, Rev. J. Hole, Elizabeth Bryan and Elizabeth Amory.
- III: The National School, established in 1833.
- The Rev. Hugh Mare Passmore bequeathed £3,000 and Mr John Brown £19 19s to the schools. Mr Brown also gave £5 and Mr G, Cock £20 to the Church Sunday Schools held in this building".
Elizabeth Squier (d.1734) of Townhouse Barton, South Molton, was the great-niece of Hugh Squier (d.1710) who founded the "Free School" (
alias Squier's School) in 1682. Rev. Hugh Mare (or Maire) Passmore (1779-1861) was the only son of John Passmore, "gentleman", (a status mentioned in Alumni Oxonienses) of Millbrook in the parish of Twitchen, near South Molton, a farmer and tenant within the North Molton Estate owned by the Bampfylde baronets (later Barons Poltimore). John Passmore was a son of William Passmore of Millbrook, by his second wife Margaret Maire, a daughter of Hugh Maire of South Molton. William Passmore's inscribed ledger stone survives in North Molton church, immediately in front of the pulpit. In 1798 Hugh Mare Passmore matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, and later became curate and then rector of Porlock in Somerset. (Source: A note on some Passmore Farms in North Molton, Bishop's Nympton and Twitchen By Desmond Painter, Bournemouth, February 2008 (Revised version February and June 2009
[1]) In 1832 he married, as her second husband, Joan Slader (1772-1861) (a daughter of William Slader by his wife Elizabeth Tapp of Twitchen), widow of Henry Phelps (d.1832) of Porlock "artist, surgeon and landowner" (
https://www.myheritage.com/names/joan_slader), of whose will he was an executor. (Will and codicils of Henry Phelps of Porlock, surgeon. 1828-1832, Somerset Heritage Centre, Reference number DD/ED/1832/203
[2]) The Phelps family resided at a leasehold, called Phelps, at Porlock Weir (). Henry Phelps was a younger brother of the portrait painter
Richard Phelps "Junior" (1710–1785) (Victoria County History, "Somerset", biography of Richard Phelps) . Their father Richard Phelps "Senior" (d.1740) was also a painter, specialising in altarpieces. Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886 by Joseph Foster, "Passmore, Hugh Maire":
s. John, of South Molton, Devon, gent. Exeter Coll., matric. 21 May, 1798, aged 18; B.A. 1802[3])