Nov 07

Victorian Rye


Jean Floyd

Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years:   1837-1901.  During that period there were seven censuses.   What follows is a decade by decade summary of what those censuses, together with contemporary reports and Rye histories tell us about Rye and its people.

1840s

  • Children made up one-third of the population
  • 6-10  persons in a household was normal
  • Nearly everyone had been born in Rye or within a few miles of it
  • Few children went to school 
  • Lighting was by candle
  • Everyone used outdoor privies—usually shared by several households
  • Rye had more than 40 inns

1850s

  • Gas lights lit the town
  •  ‘Salad days’ of Rye shipbuilding (to1855). Rye vessels regularly featured in Illustrated London News
  • Three trains a day to London. Railway replacing stagecoaches, barges, hoys
  • One quarter of the population needing poor relief; soup kitchen feeding 1220
  • Streets named and houses numbered by William Holloway (1859)

1860s

  • Disastrous weather 1859-60: gales, shipwrecks, floods
  • Ruined crops brought depression but fortunes rising by 1864
  • Three local papers printed in Rye
  • Entertainments:  plays, revival meetings, freak shows, recital/ concert evenings . . .
  • Average life span: 44 years (National 40)

1870s

  • A School Board for Rye; many children now attending school
  • Rye Literary Society flourishing but farming and trade depressed
  • Rye Agricultural Hall (now Rye Mews) built for stock, produce and annual show
  • Rye Fawkes celebrations ‘a time of terror’
  • Rye had 6 free public pumps to supply water to 470 unconnected houses
  • Soup kitchen added to Ypres Tower

1880s

  • An exceptionally high tide caused extensive flooding and a lingering smell of dead worms (1882)
  • Rye’s trade mostly by ships from other ports but new fleet of barges a success
  • School attendance compulsory (5-12)
  • Huge town celebration for Golden Jubilee
  • Rye Regatta revived: gala day for town
  • Corporation dealt with public health, highways, water supply, fire brigade, street lighting, allotments . . . .

1890s

  • Rye Golf Club founded and Rye and Camber tram opened
  • Shipbuilding, industries at low ebb…
  • …but tourism compensating; artists, antiquarians, architects, photographers…
  • Soup Kitchen provided 6,400 loaves and 7,040 quarts of soup to the needy
  • 2000 ‘Robin breakfasts’ for children
  •  470 households connected to water

1900 

  • Rye still working 200 cargoes a year. 
  • Coal and Dutch cheese coming in.  Corn and oak going out
  • Commercial electricity not yet to Rye
  • Cheap beer and many inns: drunkenness and lawlessness —> 10 inns closed 1901
  • Cattle still driven through streets to slaughter houses behind High Street
Much more to come!