By Sheila Maddock

Poor Quarter

This look at Mermaid Street is based on data from the 1891 census. It is known that at this period Mermaid Street was a run down area, and the fact that it led directly up from the Strand which was the main port area of the town suggests it may well have been a rather disreputable street at times. It was still a run down area well into the twentieth century. A couple living there in two rooms in the fifties talked about the rats.

Children 

Mermaid Street School (Drawing by Brian Hargreaves)

Looking at the 1891 census, one of the most striking things was the number of children present, in contrast with Mermaid Street today where there are no children living permanently. There were a total of 70 children living in the street, 54 attending school and the others under school age.

• The  school in Mermaid Street had been built as ‘The Mermaid Street National School’ in 1867,  (the date can still be made out on the Mermaid St wall of the building, picked out in coloured brick).
• At that time the school took both boys and girls, but by 1891 the girls and infants went to the school in Lion Street (then known as Red Lion Street), and the Mermaid Street school took boys.

There were 42 households listed in Mermaid Street itself (with a total of 199 people) and another 8 households in Mermaid Yard (with 31 people).    What sort of work were these people doing?

• There  were seven men listed as sailors or fishermen, and six men working as ship builders/repairers. There may also have been some men absent at sea, as in some households the head of household was not present.
• The  largest category of employment was ‘general labourer’ which presumably means men who would work at whatever offered itself at different seasons.  Other trades mentioned included John Reeves, a miller, Walter Hopper a baker who worked for John Reeves, and William Phillpott, a shoemaker.

Washerwoman at work Mermaid Passage c1890

• Among the women common occupations were needlewoman and laundress. Selina Hall, Frances Talland and Edith Palmer were dressmakers.Catherine Paine, Lydia Hollands and Eliza Stone were laundresses. The laundresses may have worked on their own account, but by this time there were commercial laundries where some may have been employed.
• There were several people of both sexes working as servants.

The Wealthy

• The First House has an interesting history. It was originally built by the Lambs, and was part of the Lamb House complex, possibly used as offices. It was rented out by the 1840s, and was eventually sold at auction in 1883, together with various other lots of Lamb property, including Lamb House.
• Number  4, one of the other large houses in Mermaid Street, was occupied by  Edgar Stonham, a corn merchant,  and his wife and servants. There are also six people listed as living on own means, but these means may be quite limited, as they were mainly elderly women living in with their family. 

The Mermaid

The Mermaid Inn is not mentioned in the census, as it was not functioning as an inn at this period, and was let as lodgings. Interestingly, it had been an inn from `600 and probably much earlier–the cellar is probably 13th century.

 Interestingly, It had been an inn from 1600 and probably much earlier–the cellar is probably 13th century and there are many traces of Tudor work in the building.  It was a favourite of smugglers, in particular the Hawkhurst Gang.  But from the mid 1700s it declined and became tenements.

• In a book published in 1877 the author, Louis Jennings, describes visiting Rye and asking for the Mermaid Inn. Most people had never heard of it, and eventually he finds ‘an ancient man’ who shows him where it used to be. The inn had been closed at that stage for many years, and ‘a labouring man’ was living in it.
• The Mermaid had resumed its function as an inn by the time of the 1901 census

Hartshorne House 

 16th century Hartshorne House is just  below the Mermaid Inn and its state  at  the end of the 19th century as indicated in the photo probably indicates  the state  of the  Mermaid Inn at the same time.    

• Hartshorne House had been  the residence of Samuel Jeake II. It was part of the dowry brought by his wife Elizabeth on their marriage in 1670 and was then one of the town’s finest  homes.  (A separate article on the Jeake family is forthcoming.) 
• In the earlier part of the 19th century the house was used as a hospital for Napoleonic War victims–perhaps one reason for its sorry state.  Fortunately, this house, like the Mermaid Inn,  was  restored just in time . 

Where People Came From

• Most of the people in Mermaid Street at this time were born either in Rye, or in nearby villages in Kent and Sussex, but there were also people from elsewhere. Fisherman William Batchelor who was born in Rye, had a wife from Cornwall. Perhaps he  met her on a sea voyage to the West Country.

• However the most travelled person in the Street was a Harriett Bradley, who was born in Hampshire, and had seven children, each one born  in a different county. These included Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Pembrokeshire, with the youngest being born in Rye.  As her husband was not present on the night of the census, there was no information about his occupation.

• The 1881 census shows the family living in St Ives (Huntingdonshire) and reveals that Harriett’s husband William was a Wesleyan minister, explaining why his family had moved every couple of years.

So the picture that emerges of the street at this date is of a bustling area full of children, with a few wealthier people living among the poorer majority,  rather than being segregated from them.