Raymond Butt

Raymond Venimore Jack Butt FRAS (26 February 1941 – 23 March 2018) was a British schoolteacher and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. An accomplished rower and coach, he twice won the Boston rowing marathon. He was a member of the Stewards' Enclosure at Henley Royal Regatta for nearly 50 years.

He was said to be able to recite pi to 3,500 places and to have once memorised the entire British railway timetable. He formed a large collection of railway tickets and in 1995 published a directory of "every station, halt, platform and stopping place on the British passenger network". was born in Colchester, Essex, on 26 February 1941 to Herbert Butt and his wife Kathleen Butt (née Upchurch). He was educated at the King's School, Peterborough, where he was a chorister and developed an interest in rowing.

He studied natural philosophy (physics) at the University of Edinburgh where he was taught by the future Nobel laureate Peter Higgs and the mathematician Alexander Aitken. He married Jane Woods in 1980 and the couple had a son and a daughter. They divorced in 1989.

He created the observatory at The King's School and earned a master's degree in astrophysics. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1977

After his retirement from teaching in 1998 he worked for a decade as an usher at Ashford County Court and was an examiner for the British Physics Olympiad.

Selected publications