In their honour we have put together a display of posters and other items from their 40 years of singing.  The photograph, taken in Rye Castle/Ypres Tower, shows four founder-members, Lesley Brownbill, (conductor),  Jo Kirkham, Susan Manktelow, and Carole Osborne.

The Ryesingers have been loyal supporters of the Rye Museum — they recently  donated the proceeds of yet another lovely concert to our  Women’s Tower Project.  Here are some things to know about them:

• The Ryesingers held their inaugural meeting in 1971 with eight ladies.  The membership now totals about 40 and includes men.
• From that very first meeting their Conductor has been Lesley Brownbill who continued to fire members with her own enthusiasm and choose imaginative programmes.
• They have taken part in competitions all over the British Isles and appeared several times on TV and radio. They have also performed in Germany, France and Belgium.
• Their repetoire is very wide:  folk songs,  Gilbert and Sullivan, large classical works, church services, oratorios . . . .
• The Choir has sung for many civic functions in Rye.  One of the members from the beginning has been  Jo Kirkham (our Chairman) who, on becoming Mayor of Rye in 1979 immediately appointed Ryesingers as her personal minstrels — a medieval tradition revived.
• Ryesingers welcomed inn song Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on her visit to Rye as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1980.

Cross of Sacrifice, Ypres cemetery

Among the recent additions to the Ypres Tower displays is the model for the Cross of Sacrifice which Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942) designed for the Imperial War Museum to commemorate soliders who lost their lives in the Ypres Salient during WWI.   but have no marked graves.  The  display has been donated by Priscilla Ryan and Paul Blomfield, grandchildren of Sir Reginald.   Copies of the cross are present in most Commonwealth war cemeteries around the world.  There is one in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, another in Arlington Cemetery, Washington D.C. , honouring fallen Canadians.   The cross is usually of limestone on the face of which is mounted a bronze cross with the blade pointing down.

 The Menin Gate

Ypres, The Menin Gate

The most famous of Sir Reginald’s war memorials is the magnificent Memorial Gate to the Missing at Ypres,  Belgium, built by the British Government and unveiled in 1927.  It is located on one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line.   Some 300,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed in the Ypres Salient. 90,000 of  whom have no known graves.  The large Hall of Memory contains names on stone panels of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient but whose bodies have never been identified or found; for lack of sufficient room here others are listed on another memorial.  At 8 p.m. each evening buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post.

Sir Reginald and Rye

Sir Reginald was well-known before the war as a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period. In 1886 he married the daughter of Henry Burra of Rye where he designed several houses, including his own on Point Hill, Playden.   One he let to the American novelist Henry James.  He also designed the Rye, Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital,

Saltcote Place and many of the houses on the Playden ridge.   Other pre-war projects included the building or renovation of country great houses (e.g. Chequers), university buildings (e.g.Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford) amd commercial and  buildings (e.g. completion of the Quadrant in Regents Street, London).

Saltcote Place

And that’s not all:

Did you know that Sir Reginald designed the pylons you see throughout the country?  His  familiar steel lattice pylon design has been in use since the 1920s but is now about to be replaced by a new T-shaped design, winner of a competition to develop a new generation of pylons to keep up with the UK’s goals for greener energy.

All the writers listed below lived in Rye and the immediate area — at least for a while.   There were many more—some living only slightly further afield– who visited Rye,  often as guests of writers listed below, and these will be the subject of a future article.     Stories Set in and Around Rye has recently been uploaded — you might be surprised to discover how many there are, for all ages,  and how good they are. Click on Literary Rye at right to see the article.   Meanwhile, for more information (with illustrations) on specific books and visits to the places local writers have lived, see the Literary Rye section of the excellent Rye Eye website.

AIKEN, Conrad (1889 – 1973) American novelist , poet,  editor  and critic who lived at Jeake’s House, Mermaid Street,  between 1923 and 1939.  His works include Great Circle, King Coffin and the ‘autobiographical narrative’ Ushant.  He edited the poems of Emily Dickinson, won the Pulitzer Prize with his Selected Poems as well as  many other awards and is regarded as an important influence on modern poetry.  He was a lifelong friend of T.S. Eliot and also a friend of Ezra Pound.  His three children also became well-regarded authors and together wrote a biography of their father.   

AIKEN,  Joan (1924 -2004) Born in Rye and a prolific writer like her older sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. Joan Aiken produced countless short stories and more than 30 books for adults (she was an expert on Jane Austen) and over 60 for children and teenagers.  The best known of these are the twelve linked fantasy books beginning with  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (begun 1962). These are set in the author’s version of the 19^th century, when wolves have crossed through the Channel Tunnel to roam the land and the rulers are a line of good Stuart kings.  For younger readers a favourite is A Necklace of Raindrops (1973) with its eight delightful read aloud stories featuring a flying apple pie, a cat that’s bigger than an elephant, a house that lays an egg, storybook animals that leap out of their books at night. .   She was awarded the MBE for her services to children’s literature.  See also the article on Jeake’s House

BATSFORD, Sir Brian Cook (1910-1991), publisher, illustrator, painter and politician, lived at 10 Watchbell Street, then Lamb House, 1980 – 1987.   He is best known as Brian Cook, the illustrator/designer of the dust jackets of the highly-collectable Batsford books from the 1930s to the 1950s.

BENSON, A.C. (1862 – 1925)  Biographer and one of the most prolific and popular essayists of the Edwardian period. Son of an archbishop of Canterbury, editor of the selected letters of Queen Victoria, and author of “Land of Hope and Glory”  Lived at Lamb House 1919-1925. Works include  The Trefoil, Maggie Benson, From a College Window and Rossetti.  He sometimes shared Lamb House with his brother E.F. Benson.

BENSON, E.F. (1867 – 1940) Prolific novelist, autobiographer and biographer and now more famous brother of A.C.Benson. who lived at Lamb House 19-17-1940   Unlike Henry James, he took an active part in Rye’s politival and social life and served as Mayor 1935-37.  Yet while living in Rye he wrote over 40 books.  He is best remembered for his Tilling novels, social comedies set in Rye in the 1920′s and 30′s and featuring the rivalry between Mapp and Lucia.  Other works include Dodo, Our Family Affairs, Charlotte Bronte, Secret Lives and Final Edition.  There is an E.F. Benson Society which organizes events and exhibitions and meets annually in Rye.  Its secretary offers walks around Rye looking at the houses and places associated with Mapp and Lucia and their creator.  For details of these, and much else, go to the Society’s website:  E F Benson Society .  For an article on this website click here.

BRADLEY, Arthur G (1850 – 1943).   Biographer and travel writer who lived at The Red House (Tillingham Avenue before all the new houses were built) then at West Watch, Traders Passage. Of most interest to Ryers  is An Old Gate of England: Rye, Romney Marsh and the Western Cinque Ports (1918), with delightful line drawings by  Marion E.G. Bradley.  The 77 pages specifically on Rye are especially rewarding with its picture of the town 100 years ago but he goes on to cover Winchelsea, Northiam, Romney Marsh villages and the lands between. Excerpts on Rye are available here.   His other books  include The Story of the Kentish Cinque Ports,  the Highways and Byways series (Lake District, Scotland, Wilthire, The March and Borders,  Land of Wales ….), Canada and Life of Wolfe.

CLARK, Edmund John, M.D  (1799 – 1836)  Son of John Clark, Weslyan minister in Rye, he studied medicine at Edinburgh University.  nd was well-travelled.   He was an enterprising traveller and one of the few to climb to the summit of Europe’s highest mountain,  Mont Blanc.   He published  The Ascent of Mont Blanc in 1825.  William Holloway reports that on his return from this hazardous expedition he gave a very  interesting lecturein Rye, giving details of his journey and exhibiting specimens.   He died  at the early age of 37 and is buried in Cranbrook where he had been practicing as a doctor.

CHRISTOPHER, John (b 1922) , chief pseuudonym of prolific Rye author Samuel Youd   An award-winning writer of science fiction, much of it for teenagers, he has written some 70 books. The best known are The Death of Grass , The Guardians and  The Tripods  trilogy (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire).    He is considered the successor to H.G. Wells and John Wyndham in that his characers are confronted with a major disaster which has huge implications for society and the world.    The Death of Grass, popular in the 1950s and 1960s is considered the definitive novel of its genre and has been on GCSE reading lists  while the award winning triology The  Tripods was the basis for a  1980s British television series filmed in Rye near the author’s  home at that time.  Empty World , set in Winchelsea, is still avidly read and recommended (e.g. in Germany) despite its bleak theme:   the main character is one of the world’s few survivors of a deadly virus.    The books are still being reissued. 

DARWIN, Bernard (1876-1961).  Writer, authority on Dickens and excellent golfer.   Grandson of Charles and Emma Darwin,  he was raised by his grandparents at Down House (Downe, Kent, English Heritage) where his widower botanist  father collaborated with the great naturalist on botanical experiments and publications.   He wrote for The Times for 45 years,  often writing one of its leaders, also for Country Life, and he wrote a much anthologised piece on W G Grace’s birth centenary. Twice  he was Captain of Rye Golf Club, in 1906 and 1956, a gap of 50 years!    He lived at the Dormy House by the Landgate in the 1950′s.   

Of his book of essays On Golf It has been said that “Nobody ever knew more about golf than Darwin or wrote about it so intuitively.”    In 2005, Darwin was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame  in the Lifetime Achievement category.    One of several collectors’  item children’s books is The Tale of Tootleoo (Nonesuch Press 1925) for which he wrote the verses, accompanied by22 full page colour lithographs by his wife, the engraver Elinor Monsell.  His brother-in-law  J R Monsell illustrated other children’s books by Darwin.  (Monsell was the husband of Margaret Irwin, see below.  Connections among Rye authors abound!)    

DICKINSON, Patric (1914 – 1994).  Poet, playwright, broadcaster, classicist, golfing blue and above all, a lyric poet.     As a radio editor and producer of distinction  for the BBC (1942-48)  he and the popular Home Service programme Time for Verse did much to bring poetry to a wider audience.  Once described as  a ‘poet impressario’, he was  known for his beautifully crafted poems, in the tradition of Housman, de la Mare and Geoffrey Grigson  From the time of his marriage to Sheila Shannon  in 1945, he and the family lived at 38 Church Square so it is only natural that many of his poems have Rye associations.  This is particulrly true of Sketches of Rye and Poems from Rye, read at the Rye Festival 1979. He also  translated the complete Plays of Aristophanes and Virgil’s Aeneid. and wrote an autobiography The Good Minute: Autobiography of a Poet-Golfer  (1965)    Rye golfers can still enjoy A Round of Golf (1950, recently reissued as a paperback classic) in  which he wrapped his descriptions of what he  regarded as the best 18 golf courses in England in much  history and anedcote.  Other titles  include This Cold Universe, Rift in Time, Not Hereafter,  Durable Fire, More Than Time, A Wintering Trree,  The Bearing Beast and A Living John.  

EDWARDS, Monica  (1912–1998).  Children’s author whose fifteen Romney Marsh novels are  still widely read. Her family moved to  Rye Harbour in the early 1920′s when her father became Vicar. She loved the area, and came to know the fishermen and the marsh farmers well (e.g. at Castle Farm).  She also explored the marshes beyond her front door and the coast path leading by the Martello Tower.  Like Malcolm Saville, she used these real places in her books.    All but Castle Farm, destroyed in WWII, exist in their correct places and can be visited today although she renamed them:   Rye is  Dunsford,  Rye Harbour Westling, Winchelsea Winklesea and  Camber Castle Cloudesley Castle.   Specific titles are mentioned in the article Stories Set in and Around Rye.   She also wrote for magazines and BBC Children’s Hour and the story for the  Children’s Film Foundation film Dawn Killer, set on Romney Marsh.

 The financial freedom gained from the success of her writing enabled the family to buy an old farmhouse and land in Surrey in November 1947. Punchbowl Farm was to provide the background and setting for many of her subsequent books,   Information about Monica Edwards, her books, the Monica Edwards Appreciation Society and its magazine Martello, as well as events and visits to places in the books can be found on the Monica Edwards  website.  

FABES, Gilbert (1894 – 1973)  Antiquarian bookseller in Rye and writer on first editions.  He published  Autobiography of a Book in 1926,  Romance of a Bookshop 1904-1929 in 1929,  and Modern First Editions: Points and Values (3rd ed.)  in 1932 . All three are still sought after by collectors.  He went on to publish journal articles and bibliographies of specific authors, among them D. H. Lawrence, John Galswrothy and Ralph Hale Mottram,  in each case concentrating on first editions, bibliographic points and values.  His daughter Alma Fabes wrote The Meryons of  Rye  Adams of Rye, 1985), an account of a Huguenot family  who  fled  from persecution by King Louis XIV in the late 17th century and became prominent citizens of Rye.

FLETCHER, John  (1579-1625)   Born in Rye, John Fletcher became one of the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day,  his fame rivalling Shakespeare’s.  He collaborated with Shakespeare, Beaumont and others, and followed Shakespeare as house playwright for the King’s Men.    Some believe his birth house was what is now Fletcher’s House, a popular Rye tearoom, but stronger evidence points to a former vicarage on the site of what Ryers know as The Old Vicarage.  Whichever is the case, Richard Fletcher, his Anglican minister father, was at the time serving in Rye and subsequently became Dean of Peterborough, Bishop of Bristol, Bishop or Worcester, then Bishop of London and chaplain to the queen in which capacity he was chaplain at the execution of Queen Mary.   

 We know that Fletcher had to fend for himself from the age of 17 when his father died and that he died of the plague at age 46 (a good age at the time). Within those 29 years he achieved much.  In 1606 he met the writer Francis Beaumont and began a creative partnership that was to produce 15 plays before Beamont’s untimely death from plague in 1616.  Fletcher went on to write another 16 plays under his own name, as well as collaborating with many of the prominent writers/actors of the day,   Shakespeare being only one of them  .   Wit, humour and romanticism are the essence of Fletcher’s writing and some plays still stand the test of time.    There is an active Fletcher’s Theatre group in Rye , promoting theatrical productions by Fletcher and his contemporaries.   For more  information about Fletcher, his work and the FletcherTheatre, go to Friends of  Fletcher Theatre  

GODDEN, Rumer (1907 – 1998)  Lived at Lamb House 1968-73 and at Hartshorn House 1973 to 1978 when she left to be nearer a daughter in Scotland.  One of the foremost English language authors of the 20th century, she wrote novels, biographies, children’s books,  poetry, memoirs of her childhood in a part of India that is now Bangladesh:: Two Under the Indian Sun (1966 with her sister Jon) and two further volumes of autobiography: A Time to Dance, No Time To Weep (1987) and A House with Four Rooms (1949) — some 70 works altogether. several made into films.   Her work has been translated into 17 languages.  

She excelled at writing about children. Of special interest to Ryers is A Kindle of Kittens (1978) a Picturemac for the very young.  Its  illustratiions by Lynne Byrnes  put the streets,  roofs, cats and townspeople of Rye between the covers.   (For more details go to Stories Set in Rye.)    Other books for children  include The Doll’s House (1947), The Mousewife (1951),   and Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (1961). In 1972 she won the Whitbread Award for The Diddakoi which has also been adapted for television.  Other books for teenagers which have been filmed are The Greengage Summer (1958) wherein four children in France are  rudely thrust into the adult world and The Peacock Spring (1978), an Anglo-Indian  coming of age story  (televised 1995).

She also excelled at nuns.  Black Narcissus (1938)  deals with the struggle of a group of nuns to maintain their convent in a disused Indian palace. it was made into a popular film and has never been out of print. While living in Rye she wrote another book about nuns, This House of Brede (1969), also filmed.  Despite the local name, the Bsnedictine convent in the story is modelled on Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire,

 In Two Under the Indian Sun, a memoir co-authored with her sister Jon in 1966,  she wrote “Our house was streaked with Indian or Indian streaked with English.”  The same can be said of her books — such as The River (1949) one of her most acclaimed novels which was made into a film by Jean Renoir in 1951–and of her life.  For twenty years she ran a dance school for English and Indian children in Calcutta. She returned to England to stay in 1945 and in 1968  took the tenancy of Lamb House with her second husband.  She was appointed OBE in 1993 and at age 90  published her 21st novel, Cromartie vs. the God Shiva (1997).  She died the following year.   More on Rumer Godden here  or Wikipedia.

HALL, Radclyffe (1880 – 1943).  Novelist and poet who lived in Rye with her great friend,  Lady Una Troubridge between1928 and 1943; she is the subject of at least four biographies  and is included in Iain Finlayson’s Writers in Romney Marsh (London: Severn Hoouse 1986).    Besides the Mermaid Inn, she lived in various houses including  Santa Maria in West Street, 8 Watchbell Street,  Black Boy (later Charles II Guest House)  in the High Street,  and finallyThe Forecastle in Hucksteps Row, off Church Square, her longest residence.  Her best-known book is the lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness (1928). Although the story of her main character was intended as a plea for more tolerant understanding of  ‘inverts’ like herself ,  its only sex scene consists of the words ‘and that night, they were not divided” .Although she had the  support by leading writers of the day, the book was suppressed for obscenity in the UK when it was first published — and has  been famous ever since; it has been translated into at least 14 languages.   Other critically acclaimed works include Adam’s Breed, prize winner and bestseller about an Italian  headwaiter’s search for identity  and meaning (he is a bastard child), amidst an immigrant community and delicious food;  and Unlit Lamp, about a young girl who dreams of becoming a doctor but is trapped by a manipulative mother. 

For Ryers, however, the most interesting of her books by far is The Sixth Beatitude, about  life on Hucksteps Row (named Crofts Lane in the book).   ‘John’ ( as Radclyffe Hall called herself) and Una had first stayed in the cottage at the end of the row in 1928 and in 1934 were able to move into it,  now become a large and picturesque four bedroom period cottage which John renamed Forecastle.  (Paul McCartney owns it now.)   At the time Hucksteps Row was a clutter of some dozen slum cottages –typical rent 2s.6d a week, lived in by fisherfolk including 28 children,  often two families to a cottage, with shared outside toilets and no gardens.   The lives, attitudes and tragedies of dwellers on the row are sensitively depicted in the book and characters — such as ‘the happy-go-lucky  landlord’ — based on real persons;  Forecastle becomes The Look-Out.  See Stories set in and around Rye. 

 HOLLOWAY,  William (1786-1870)  was one of Rye’s most remarkable inhabitants, a voluminous writer on Rye matters.   He moved to Rye at age 35 and became a leader in Rye’s reform movement in the 1820s and latera freeman and jurat.   On the death of his father-in-law he joined the Meryon family brewery – his wife was Sarah Meryon –  but seemed to have no flair for business.  However he did prove to be an indefatigable town historian.     In 1847 he published The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Town and Port of Rye in the County of Sussex with Incidental Notices of the Cinque Ports compiled from manuscripts and original authorities – a tome of over 600 pages. It is still an invaluable source on Rye’s history.  

He was interested in anything to do with the environment (e.g. he was a keen ornithologist) and the welfare of the Rye community.  It was Holloway who undertook to rename Rye streets and number the houses in 1859–to bring order to postal deliveries and town records  On the reverse pages of his brother-in-law’s two volumes of Rye history Some Account of Rye and its Municipal Government  [See Charles MERYON above] he kept what has been published as A Casual Diary where he copied or stuck in materials from newspapers, journals and book-news, everyday occurrences, thoughts –  anything which caught his interest –  all of which add up to incomparable social history.  During the same period he published two series of Antiquarian Rambles through Rye (1863 and 1866). His contemporary, the printer Henry Pocock Clark, asserted that ‘in this town of 5000 inhabitants’ Holloway was ‘the only star of any magnitude shining in [Rye's] hemisphere’.    

HYDE, H. Montgomery (1907 – 1989) was a barrister, politician, biographer and historian specialising in the 1890′s.  A distant cousin of Henry James, he lived at Lamb House 1963 – 1969.    Oxford educated, he worked as an Intelligence Officer in WWII, travelled widely, was  Unionist MP for Belfast North 1950-59 and UK Delegate at the Council of Europe 1952-55. He strenuously opposed the death penalty and censorship laws and paid for his efforts for homosexual law reform within Parliament in the 1950s  with the loss of his political career; the vote was so close it was felt by some he might have carried the day had he been present for the vote.  (Decriminalisation took another ten years.) He held the chair of History and Political science at the University of the Punjab, Lahore  1959-62 and wrote over 50 works on biographical, legal  Irish and espionage subjects.  For example, he wrote extensively on Oscar Wilde and his circle, edited Wilde’s works and published  accounts of the trials of Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  He also wrote  The Love that Dared Not Speak Its Name (1970) and Henry James at Home (1969) about James at Lamb House, where Hyde was living at the time.

IRWIN, Margaret ( d. 1969) Historical novelist and noted authority on Elizabethan and early Stuart England.    She and her husband John Monsell lived at Fir Crest (now Arling House) in Hilly Fields, Rye Hill in the 1940′s.  Her fifteen novels were esteemed for the accuracy of their historial research and the first in a trilogy on Queen Elizabeth, Young Bess, was made into a film starring Jean Simmons. She  wrote passionately about the English Civil War, causing generations to fall in love with the ill-fated but charismatic Earl of Montrose;  The Proud Servant (1949)  is a biographical novel about Montrose, and The Bride, the story of his ill-fated romance with Louise Marie of the Palatinate (1939).  Another favourite with readers is The Gay Galliard (later simply The Galliard):  the story of  Mary Queen of Scots (1941).  

The dust covers of most of her books were provided by her husband,  J R   Monsell, whom she married  in 1929.  He was regarded as one of the best humorous  illustrators  (and authors) for children of the Edwardian period; his edition of Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring was hugely successful, for example and he created a musical version of  Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 18th-century comedy The Rivals.  His sister married Bernard Darwin, see above.)

JAMES, Henry (1843 – 1916)  American born prodigious writer of fiction as well as travel, biography, plays, criticism , hundreds of essays and reviews and regarded as a key figure of literary realism. He  lived in Britain for the last 40 years of  his life , aspired to own Lamb House from 1895, achieved his aim in 1898 and made it his home until the year he died (1916).    He enjoyed showing off the house to his many visitors who included H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Rudyard Kipling, Ford Maddox (Hueffer) Ford,  G. K. Chesterton  Hilaire Belloc — all of whom lived nearby –as well as Mrs Humphrey Ward and, a particularly good friend, Edith Wharton, to name but a few.    Lamb House is recognisable in The Awkward Age (1898) as the home of Mr. Longdon.   

Son of a wealthy intellectual connected with the leading American thinkers and authors of the day (Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Longfellow) and tutored in languages and literature during extensive family travels throughout Europe, he spent the last 40 years of his life in Britain, nearly half of these based in Rye.  Many of his works explore the differences between the old and the new worlds, in particular his early masterpieces Daisy Miller (1879) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881), a psychological novel which is his most popular work of long fiction. After the failure of his play Guy Domville in 1895 James began to probe his characters’ consciousness ever more deeply, as in The Spoils of Poynton (1897) and What Maisie Knew (also 1897), an unflinching account of a dysfunctional family.    His most famous short story is the Turn of the Screw (1898), a ghost story full of sexual and psychological ambiguity in which a governess becomes  obsessed with the question of childhood corruption.

Three of the novels written in Rye during the third period of his career are considered his most significant achievements, namely The Wings of the Dove (1902), whose main character is based on a much-loved cousin who died young of TB, The Ambassadors (1903), a dark comedy which James considered his most perfect book,  and The Golden Bowl (1904)  a complex study of marriage and adultery.  All of these, which earned him the title ‘The Master’,  have been the subject of innumerable critical works.

Despite some hostility (in America because he took out British citizenship) and complaints about his complex language, there is no letup in the enormous volume of writing about the man and his works; his books have remained continuously in print, edited, annotated, and studied in schools, colleges and universities around the world,  a major influence on aspiring novelists. Film versions of his novels and stories — for example The Golden Bowl (2000).  The Wings of the Dove (1997), The Turn of the Screw  (1964) and Washington Square (1947) have  been commercially successful and won prestigious awards. Benjamin Britten’s operatic version of The Turn of the Screw (1954) has become one of the composer’s most popular works.

Beyond his fiction, James was one of the more important literary critics in the history of the novel; in his classic essay The Art of Fiction (1884), he argued that a novelist should be allowed  the widest possible freedom in content and approach.  James was also one of the great letter-writers of any era. More than ten thousand of his personal letters are extant, and over three thousand have been published    He was acquainted with many notable literary figures of the day In addition to the those already mentioned as visitors to Rye, these included Robert Browning, Ivan Turgenev, Emile Zola, Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Gustave Flaubert and Robert Louis Stevenson.

The year 2004 has been called ‘the year of Henry James’  because he was at the centre of two major biographical novels (Author, Author by David Lodge and the Booker shortlisted The Master by Colm Toibin), both featuring the aftermath of his disappointing effort to conquer the stage in the 1890s – which included his settling in Rye.  The hero of the actual Booker winner, The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollingshurst,  is writing a thesis on James  One wonders what James would think if he knew how well he is regarded today and that millions of people all over the world have encountered his stories not only on the printed page but in theatrical, cinematic and television adaptations? 

JEAKE, Samuel (1623 – 1690), called the Elder to distinguish him from his son Samuel Jeake the Younger was the grandson of Huguenot immigrants fleeing persecution in France.  He became a freeman of  Rye and its Town Clerk.  He bought the entire collection of borough statutes (for a guinea) and used these to produce The Charters of the Cinque Ports, Two Ancient Towns and their Members. He was a staunch Presbyterian, or Dissenter, which led to the threat of prosecution in 1682 for ‘holding forth’ under the Act of Uniformity introduced after the Restoration of Charles II. Jeake also wrote on mathematics, and made the first recorded use of the terms  addend and proper fraction. The four volumes of his principal mathematical work Logisticelogia, or Arithmetick Surveighed were edited by his son.

JEAKE, Samuel II (1652–1699), writer, astrologer and  polymath was as firm a Presbyterian as his father and he too became a freeman.  However he is more famous for his remarkable and extensive Diaries which are today highly valued as an historical resource.   Though he displayed hardheadedness  as a merchant in wool and hops and as a money-lender and shrewd investor,  somewhat incongruously he used the stars for guidance in such matters as subscribing to the new Bank of England or choosing a wife.  At the age of 29 he married the 13 year old Elizabeth Hartshorne, daughter of the late headmaster of the High Street Grammar School, receiving Hartshorne House on Mermaid Street (later known as the Old Hospital) as part of her dowry. What is now known as Jeake’s House was in fact his wool store., built in 1689 to serve the Romney Marsh sheep trade. 

Jeake’s Diaries  contain  day-by-day accounts of his business dealings and local events, each entry preceded by the astrological symbol for the day. It was not until the 20^th century that his shorthand camouflage when recording personal matters such as his marital relations and quarrels were solved and transcribed.  Among the children of Samuel and Elizabeth Jeake was another Samuel, derided locally as “a Conjuror.” He was reputed to have built a flying machine which unfortunately failed to fly. Rye’s most revered historian, William Holloway, records in the mid 19th century that he had known men who had seen the remains of the machine in the attic of the Grammar School.

end of his own life in 1699 at the age of 47, Samuel II planned to erect a Nonconformist meeting-house next door to his wool store. After his death his widow remarried, and through her daughter Philadelphia their family home, Hartshorne House, descended eventually to the Frewen family, a respected name in Rye. Elizabeth completed the task of building the meetinghouse, and licence for its opening was granted in 1703.

When Conrad Aiken was a London correspondent for the New Yorker, he used Samuel Jeake the |Younger as his pseudonum.

Among the children of Samuel and Elizabeth Jeake was another Samuel, derided locally as “a Conjuror.” He was reputed to have built a flying machine which unfortunately failed to fly. Rye’s most revered historian, William Holloway, records in the mid 19th century that he had known men who had seen the remains of the machine in the attic of the Grammar School.

  n in 1682, Jeake fled to London, where he was joined in hiding by his son and daughter-in-law the following year. The son returned warily to Rye in 1684, but his father did not risk it until James II introduced a more tolerant regime, followed by further relaxation under William and Mary.  He fled to London and remained there for many years.

MERYON,  Dr. Charles Lewis  (1783 – 1877)  Doctor Meryon accompanied Lady Hester Stanhope on her travels in the Middle East and published  The Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope in 1846.  The Meryon family lived in what is now known as The White Vine, later the home of William Hollowa, town historian and his wife Sarah Meryon who was Charles’ sister.  Charles Lewis Meryon researched the history of Rye and his manuscript became the foundation for Holloway’s History of the Town and Port of Rye (1847).  ( This Charles is not to be confused with Charles Pix Meryon who was his nephew and nine times Mayor of Rye.)

MERYON, Dr Edward  (1807 – 1880) was the natural son of John Meryon (one time mayor)  and nephew of Charles Meryon (above).    He became a distinguished and respected doctor, a Vice President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and a Council member of the Royal College of Physicians.  He did extensive research on muscular dystrophy in the early 1850′s .   It has been argued that the disease should be known as Meryon’s Disease rather than Duchenne’s Disease as his was the earlier work and more significant; the reason given for the lack of recognition is that Duchenne’s work was published in a more prominent journal and thus more widely read.  Other works included The Constitution of Man and History of Medicine (1862).

MILLIGAN, Spike  (Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan) KBE  ( 1918–2002),  was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor.  Born in India, he spent most of the last two decades of his life in Rye.   During his teens and early twenties he performed as a Jazz musician and was already starting to write comedy sketches–a skill he developed during the Word War II when despite being wounded in action he entertained the troops. His big break into the world of radio as writer and performer came with the now famous Goon Show (1951-1972).   From radio he progressed to numerous TV shows such as The Q Series which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse;  much of his poetry was written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). and is still taught in schools.   His celebrated war memoirs Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall were taken to the stage very successfully.  Milligan was also a respected actor, a keen painter and environmentalisst and contributed cartoons to Private Eye. Though he suffered from depression, in a 1999 BBC poll he was voted the “funniest person of the last 1000 years”.

Spike Milligan  is  buried in the churchyard of St Thomas Church Winchelsea. The parish authorities  refiused permission to use his chosen epitaph but a compromise was reached : ‘I told you I was ill ‘ appears on his tombstone  in Gaelic.  

RYAN, John (1922-2009), author, illustrator and animator was the creator of Captain Pugwash and other well-loved characters of book and TV.  He lived at Gungarden Cottage near the Ypres Tower with his artist wife Priscilla Blomfield Ryan, a staunch Rye Museum supporter.  Captain Pugwash animated shorts became a long-running BBC series and the Captain Pugwash books are still popular.   There is a Captain Pugwash display in the  Rye Museum where some of his books are for sale.    More  background to the man and his work is available here.   

SAVILLE, Malcolm  (1901 – 1982) grew up in and around Rye and later lived at Chelsea Cottage, Winchelsea.  Although he wrote ovet 90 books, he is best known as an author of children’s series fiction in particular the 20  Lone Pine adventures which have been read by millions of children and gone through many revisions and reprints.   The Gay DolphinAdventure (1945) nd Rye Royal (1969) are set at the Gay Dolphin Hotel on Trader’s Street,, recognisable as the Hope Anchor Hotel on Watchbell Street.  Two others, The Elusive Grasshopper (1951) and Treasure at Amorys (1964) take place near Rye.  A fifth, Saucers over the Moor (1955) , begins in Rye then moves to Shropshire and several others refer to Rye.  The Gay Dolphin was recently voted by the thousand + members of the very active Malcolm Saville Society as the best of the entire series.  A characteristic of Saville’s  fiction for young people is the authenticity of the settings, whether Shropshire, Dartmoor, Suffolk – or East Sussex.  One can take the same walks as his characters (who move around to the different settings) did. Several of his books were seriaised for BBC Radio as well as ITV Children’s drama sries

Among his other books are A Portrait of Rye (2nd ed. 1999) which has been described as ‘the consummationn of a long love affair’.  evoking Rye’s history on a series of walks through its streets and venturing also to nearby towns and villages of interst.  A guidebook, The atory of Winchelsea Church is still available in the church. Mark O’Hanlon’s  biography of Saville, Beyond the Lone Pine was published in 2001 to coincide with the centenary of  Saville’s  birth while The Complete Lone Pine – a guide to the entire series published in 1996  was reprinted in an extended hardback edition in 2005.  Lone Pine and other Saville titles are available in Rye’s Martello Bookshop as well as from the Malcolm Saville Society which for the 4th time is holding its AGM in Rye in April 2011. The Society  publishes four magazines each year and arranges regular events.

TODHUNTER, Isaac (1820-1884)  Son of the first minister of Rye’s  Non-Conformist church (now The Studio) on Watchbell Street, Todhunter became a Cambridge mathematics don. He was also a Latin and Greek scholar, familiar with at least 8 other  languages, and knowledgeable in other fields.   He was a prolific writer of textbooks on mathematical subjects which were widely translated (e.g. into Urdu) and thought to be the most widely used in the world.  He is considered one of the great mathematicians of the 19th century because of his many works on the history of mathematics.

VIDLER, Alec (1899 – 1990).  Born in Rye, son of Leopold Vidler (below), he became a clergyman, later Dean of King’s College Cambridge and after retirement,  Mayor of Rye.    A writer of many books on aspects of religion, including Marriage and Religion, God’s Judgement of Europe, A Variety of Catholic Modernists and the autobiographical Scenes from a Clerical Life.

VIDLER, Leopold (1870 – 1954) was born in Rye,   became Mayor of Rye and a Freeman, and was also the founder and first Curator of Rye Museum. He lived at The Friars of the Sack in Church Square, owned by the family since 1801.   He was the father of Alec Vidler, also a Mayor (see above).  Leopold Vidler wrote A New History of Rye, still the most thorough history of the town.

WARRENDER, Lady Maud (1870 – 1945) Socialite who lived at Leasam on Rye Hill and entertained Edward VII, Edward Elgar, Henry James and E.F.Benson. She wrote an autobiography, My First Sixty Years

WHELPTON, Eric (1894 – 1981) Writer of nearly 30 travel books and guides popular in the 1950′s and ’60′s.   He lived at West Watch in Traders Passage.   At Oxford he had became a close friend of Dorothy Sayers who based her character of Lord Peter Whimsey on him and who later became his literary secretary.  During WWII he was a BBC news correspondent in Europe.  His last two books, The Making of a European (1974) and The Making of an Englishman (1977), are largely autobiographical.  His wife, the painter Barbara Crocker, illustrated some of his books,

For the main Benson articles click here.

This recipe was contributed by E F Benson, Mayor of Rye to the book A Cargo of Recipes: 

Procure a small piece of glass (any broken window will serve) about 1 inch square. Pound this in a mortar till its consistency is of the finest dust, and thoroughly mix it with 6 or 8 times the amount of sifted sugar.  Take 3 berries of deadly nightshade (belladonna). Mince well and add one ¼ oz of foxglove (digitalis), a dessertspoonful of weed killer (arsenic) and mix together in sufficient jam or honey to neutralise the taste of the other ingredients. Spread this mixture over the surface of an ordinary pancake, roll it up in the usual manner, and sprinkle thickly on the top the powered glass and sugar. Pass a salamander over it till the glass and sugar assumes the appearance and texture of caramel.

NB  Digitalis and belladonna may be procured from any chemist, but they are not always fresh, and it is wiser for this and other reasons to pick these ingredients yourself. It is also advisable, when serving an enemy with this delicious dish, to explain that you never eat sweets yourself, but that this pancake is prepared according to an old family recipe.

This was the subtitle of a 1973 Down Rye Way column  by the then editor of Rye’s Own, Christopher Davson.  And as you will see from what follows,  Geoffrey Bagley really was  ‘extraordinary’.        The article  begins:    

‘ It was with some trepidation that your reporter stepped aside from Church Square into one of Rye’s many secret corners  [the Bagley home] to offer, on behalf of Rye’s Own   and its readers, respectful congratulations to our Honorary Freeman designate.  Geoffrey Bagley will be the only living Freeman of the Town, and the first to receive this rare honour for 15 years.  And was he not also a former Mayor, Baron and Speaker of the Cinque Ports Confederation, County Councillor, Honorary Curator of  Rye Museum . . . .  [and he might have added prolific author on aspects of Rye, cofounder of the Rye Society of Artists, and much more]. ‘    

The article goes on to summarise the many achievements of Geoffrey Bagley’s pre-Rye days (see the article by Rosemary Bagley below) and then reports that, wanting to concentrate full time on his painting,  he  ‘chose Rye as a nice quiet place for an artist to settle down and paint in’  and ends with a story which might make  Ryers lament still  more that he is no longer with us:    

‘ Well, he has settled down, and the annual Royal Society of Artists exhibition at the F.E. Centre proves to us that [despite all his other activities] he still paints.  But some people do not have it in them to stay quiet!  After only about 5 years Bagley rose up in wrath.  The then Vicar of Rye and the Rye Town Council wished to place the tombstones around the churchyard walls of St Mary’s and have mown grass.  To oppose this a committee was formed on which Geoffrey served; the plan was defeated.  Geoffrey was then asked if he would be willing to stand for Rye Town Council.  He agreed and was duly elected .  

The Churchyard was saved, but Bagley was launched on a new public career from which he could not turn back as there were other threats to Rye.    He moved on from the  Rye Planning Committee and three happy and popular years as Mayor  to East Sussex County Council on which he served for 12 years, much of them as Chairman of the County Records Committee. And he saw to it, there, that the County Planning Officers treated Rye with proper respect and indeed love. ‘  

Rosemary Bagley provided a more detailed account of the multiple impressive careers of husband Geoffrey Bagley in a 2002 Rye’s Own article (No 144, January 2002). It is slightly adapted here, with one of the line drawings by GSB which accompanied it.    

Geoffrey Spink Bagley 1901- 1992

 Beginnings 

Geoffrey  Spink Bagley was born on 3rd November 1901 at Pontefract, Yorkshire, the son of architect Frank Spink Bagley and his wife Elizabeth Husband.  The family interests ranged from industry and glassware to locomotives.  After Wakefield Grammar School, Geoffrey began architectural training but soon transferred to the Nottingham School  of Fine Art, and in 1924 moved to London to share a studio with Bernard Hailstone who was to become a well-known  portrait painter and wartime artist.  After a precarious free-lance existence as a commercial artist with exciting periods of poster  design and book illustration he was offered a job with Batten Ltd, engravers, the Toronto  design specialists.  This led to association with the then internationally known ‘Group of Seven’ and the opportunity to improve his painting skills with gifted artists.  The varied Canadian scenes (French Canada, Labrador Coast and the sub-Arctic) provided plenty of material for his work.   

Geoffrey  Bagley as Canadian Artist 

In 1934 he became Art Director of a famous firm of fine-paper manufacturers, Howard Smith Paper Mills Ltd. in Montreal– they supplied the paper for Canadian bank notes –and he became more involved with typography and printing design.  He quickly began to win awards and by 1939 his work was being shown in Chicago, New York, the National Gallery of Canada and elsewhere.    With the outbreak of World War II he became Staff Artist to the Canadian government’s Wartime Information Board, producing posters for propaganda purposes and for recruitment to the Royal Canadian Navy.  Later he was appointed to the National Film Board of Canada as Art Director of their Graphics Division.  During the war period he also recoreded life on the North Atlantic Convoys for the Canadian Navy.  A large collection of his work 1939-45 including paintings, drawings and documentation was donated  to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa in 1985, the 75th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Navy..    

Geoffrey Bagley as Artist of Rye  

The Courtyard, The Mermaid Inn, by Geoffrey Spink Bagley

While seconded to the Royal Canadian Navy as an official War Artist, there were opportunities to visit England to compare notes with his opposite numbers in the Crown Film Unit of the war-time Ministry of Information — and these probably influenced his decision to  return to live in England.  He settled in Rye in 1948, to pursue ‘straight’ painting, lithography and drawing. He explored the area, discovering Romney Marsh with its ever-changing light and fascinating collections of churches which he painted many times.  These paintings show his appreciation of church architecture and skill as a draughtsman.  He loved Dungeness with its collection of boats, shacks, various forms of habitation and flotsam and jetsam on the beach.  He had a particular love of the sea and everything connected with it.    

His other love was Scotland with its mountains and locks and he spent many painting holidays amongst this varied scenery.  And he was still pursuing special interests in the study of rococo art and architecture in Germany, Austria, France and northern Italy.   

Geoffrey Bagley and the Rye Society of Artists  

Geoffrey had by now become acquainted with Wally Cole and Leslie Davie and a number of other talented Rye artists.  In 1951 a decision was made to hold an exhibition in part of the Boy’s Club in Mermaid Street, Rye.  They chose to call themselves the RX Group, RX being the registration of the local fishing fleet.  A year later they joined up with other younger artists and together formed the Rye Society of Artists and held their first exhibition at the Further Education Centre in 1952.     

Geoffrey was involved with the RSA for forty years, being a founder member, regular exhibitor and one-time Chairman. His work has been exhibited many times over the years.  In Rye, for example, there was a joint exhibition with Leslie Davies at the Easton Rooms in 1971 and a Retrospective Exhibition at the Stormont Studio in 1982 entitled Ships, Nudes and Architecture.   

What was called at the time the ‘final accolade’ to a man who achieved so much in his lifetime was the Retrospective Exhibition held at the Stormont Studio, 16th October – 20th November 1993, which was attended by over 2,000 people. Here was displayed his mastery and skill in working in all media:  oil, watercolour, pastel, crayon, charcoal, pencil, scraperboard and litholgraphy.    (At left is Net Houses Hastings.)  Some of the works displayed are included in the permanent  collection of the Rye Art Gallery.     

There has in fact been yet another exhibition since , this time of his work as a commercial artist in Canada (1930-1945) at the Turtle Fine Art Gallery in 2004.   The exhibitions have sometimes surprised people familar only with his civic achievements in Rye.  

Geoffrey Bagley as Museum Curator, Mayor and Civic Leader, Historian and Writer

Apart from his painting, Geoffrey found time to re-establish the Rye Museum and serve as Honorary Curator for 38 years. The Museum won a National Heritage Award in 1975, mainly due to Geoffrey’s meticulous attention to accuracy and detail and his artist’s eye for display.    

In 1956 he was elected Mayor of Rye and held that post for two further years.    He was also a Speaker of the Cinque Ports, a County Councillor, a JP and as we learned at the beginning of this article, in 1973 he was the last person to be elected a Freeman of the Borough of Rye.  He  served on numerous committees. In 1956, the first year of his mayoralty, he was also President of the Rye and Winchelsea Rotary Club, being named  a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International in 1989.  He wss a Trustee of the Rye Art Gallery.    

Among Geoffrey’s most lasting contributions to Rye are the publications pertaining to Rye and its environs which he wrote and illustrated.  The list of these is long and includes:  

Book of Rye, The
Connoisser’s Guide to Rye, A
Edwardian Rye
Old Inns and Ale Houses
Pictorial Guide to Romney Marsh, A
Prospect of Rye. A
Rye Church Clock
Story of the Ypres Tower and Rye Museum, The William Holloway  

The Book of Rye  was presented to the Duchess of Kent when she visited Rye in April, 1982

Click here for an  example of Benson’s sense of humour: Pancakes à la Borgia

E.F.Benson was born at Wellington College on July 24th 1867.  Fred, as he was known to his family, was the fifth child born to Edward and Mary Benson. His father was the first Master of Wellington College, which had been established in 1858, under the guiding hand of Prince Albert. 

In 1873 the family moved to Lincoln, where Edward had been appointed Chancellor. Then in 1876 came the move to Cornwall, when Edward become the first Bishop of Truro. E.F.Benson started his education at Temple Grove, near East Sheen in Surrey, just after Easter 1878. In September 1881, he began at Marlborough College and remained there until 1887. These were to be amongst the happiest days of his life, and he wrote about them, and his days at Cambridge, in three books; David Blaize (1916) and David of King’s (1924), both of which were very popular during and after the First War, and The Babe, B.A. (1896).

In 1882 his father became Archbishop of Canterbury, and the family moved to Lambeth Palace. After leaving Marlborough, E.F.Benson went to King’s College, Cambridge from 1887 to 1891, and took a double first in Classics and Archaeology.  After Cambridge he pursued his archaeological interests at digs in Britain and then attended the British School of Archaeology in Athens. From here he worked on sites both in Greece and Egypt.

In 1893 he published his first novel, Dodo, which was an immediate best seller and quite a sensation amongst Society. It remained in print throughout his life and to many of his pre-1914 friends, he was known as ‘Dodo Benson’. His father died in 1896 and after this he gave up archaeology to become a full time writer. From 1893 until his death he published at least one, if not two books each year. His novels until 1914 were best sellers, typical of which was Mammon & Co (1899), which sold eight thousand copies on the day of publication.  He moved with his mother and sister to Winchester in 1897 and over a  year later to Tremans at Horstead Keynes, Sussex, which was to remain his mother’s home until her death in 1918.

In 1900 Benson began to live in London and led the life of a successful Edwardian socialite, being a constant guest at fashionable country house parties. Initially he lived in Barton Street,  Westminster, moving subsequently to Grosvenor Mansions  in Oxford Street. He spent his summers in Italy, often on Capri, where he leased a villa. Autumn saw him in Venice at Lady Radnor’s Pallazzo, where she had grand musical parties, at the new Bayreuth Festivals,  and also Scotland.  He wintered  at Davos, or other ski resorts, which he helped promote as a director of  Alfred Lunn’s new travel company.  Benson was a keen skater and was gold medal standard in his technique. He also swam and was a keen general sportsman.  Only after a serious operation in 1912, and the onset of arthritis, did he have to give up his sporting interests.

In 1915, he took the lease of 25 Brompton Square, his final London home. It features in his books Lucia in London (1925) and Secret Lives (1932). After the War he was no longer considered fashionable as a writer of novels, and he had to change direction.  He began to write about his family in a series of autobiographies, Our Family Affairs (1920), Mother (1925), As We Were (1930) and Final Edition (1940). He also wrote many biographies and ghost stories. He is considered to be one of the great writers of the ghost story, following in the tradition of M.R.James.

It was during his years at Lamb House that he wrote his famous Mapp and Lucia novels, set in Rye, which he renamed Tilling, after the river Tillingham.  Lamb House appears as Mallards, and is the house of first Miss Mapp and then Lucia. From the Garden Room, which was bombed in 1940, both Mapp and then Lucia were able to watch the activities of their friends. In 1934 Benson became Mayor of Rye and served for three terms. Throughout the 1930’s, his arthritis worsened and he became more immobile. He was not a great socialite in Rye, and lived here quite quietly. He enjoyed reading, researching for  his biographies, playing the piano, and entertaining a small circle of friends.

Benson was taken ill at the end of 1939 and died in London on February 29th 1940, from cancer of the throat.

 E.F.BENSON AND RYE
by Allan Downend

E.F.Benson first came to stay in Rye in 1900 as the guest of Henry James, a friend of his brother, A.C.Benson.   Rye, and particularly Lamb House,  made a profound impression upon him. He visited Rye again, and this time stayed with Lady Maud Warrender at Leasam, on the hill  behind Rye, where he met Edward Elgar and Rudyard Kipling amongst other famous people.

When Henry James died in 1916, an American woman leased the house but decided to winter on the Riviera, and let a friend of hers, George Plank, use the house.  He was a friend of Benson and the latter  spent many weekends at Lamb House with  George Plank, who was the famous illustrator who designed covers for Vogue and also illustrated Benson’s book The Freaks of Mayfair.

In 1917, another friend, the artist Robert Norton, took the full lease of Lamb House, and offered Benson the sub lease of all  but the summer months. From then on Lamb House became his country home. In 1919 he took over the whole lease and shared the house with his brother, Arthur, who was Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Arthur used the house during the vacations. Benson declined the Lamb House freehold after his brother’s death, because he had no direct descendants but continued to live there.

 Benson used the town of Rye in many of his novels and short stories, the most famous being his Tilling novels, Miss Mapp, Mapp and Lucia, Lucia’s Progress and Trouble for Lucia.  The other two books  in the series are Queen Lucia (set elsewhere) and Lucia in London (set at his London house).  In the  series, Rye appears as the town of Tilling and its geography  is identical in nearly all respects to Rye. The names of places are changed slightly,  but still reveal the connection to the original, for example, Mermaid Street becomes Porpoise Street;  Watchbell Street, Curfew Street; The Hope Anchor Hotel, The Trader’s Arms; and The George Hotel, The King’s Arms. 

His great interest in birds reveals itself in the names of places and people, such as Mallards  for Lamb House,  Starling Cottage for Robin Hill in Mermaid Street, Grebe for possibly Playden Cottage on the Military Road, and in the character Captain Puffin.  He used the houses of his friends in these books; Robin Hill was the home of his friend, the publisher Vincent Marrot and  The Other House on West Street was the home of the Jacomb-Hoods and became the Fish Shop and the Coach House attached, Quaint Irene’s Taormina.  Percy Jacomb-Hood was the illustrator of some of Benson’s books, and his wife, Reta, became Mayoress when Benson became Mayor of Rye in 1934, a position he held until 1937. Next to the Jacomb Hood’s House, Cobbles Cottage, became the Fruiterers.

Rye appears in E.F.Benson’s novel Pharisees and Publicans (1926) under its own name, and is also recognisable in the following novels and short stories:

   Mrs. Ames (1912), as Riseborough
   The Oakleyites (1915) as  Oakley-on-Sea
   Colin and Colin II, (1923 and 1925) as Rye but the house at the centre of the story , Stanier, is  Leasam.
   Visible and Invisible (1923) a collection of ghost stories, where ‘The Outcast’ has Rye as Tarleton  and
      ‘Machaon’ has Rye as Tilling
   Spook Stories (1928) where ‘Naboth’s Vineyard’ has Rye as Scarling
   More Spook Stories (1934) where ‘James Lamp’ has Rye as Trench.

There is no doubt that Rye was not only much loved by E.F.Benson, but that  it also acted as a major inspiration with regard to his writings. Although he claimed that the Tilling novels were light weight, it is because of them, and his ghost stories, that he is remembered to-day. As you walk round Lamb House and the town of Rye, you may hear echoes of his famous characters.

by Brian Purdey

 Napoleonic Threat

An example of a very rare species arrived in the military district of Hastings and Rye in the early Spring of 1806 – a successful British General! In fact it is fair to say that at the time Sir Arthur Wellesley was the only really successful general officer that his country possessed and the posting to the coast of eastern Sussex of this phenomenon needs to be explained. Following the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens and resumption of hostilities with France, the southeast counties of England, and particularly Kent and Sussex, were once more in the front line facing a threatened invasion.

Coastal Defences around Rye and Hastings

In 1803 that great martial genius, Napoleon Bonaparte, soon to crown himself Emperor, had gathered a massive force ofd 130,000 men at Boulogne, together with 2,000 boats andthis Grand Army continued to grow throughout 1804. In Britain there waas some apprehension, though not the flight in panic of the population of the two counties described with such delight in the contemorary French press. Preparations for defence were undertaken, of course, and Bonaparte’s most implacable foe in Europe, William Pitt, Prime Minister and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, was personally involved in much of the detail, often from his official residence at Walmer Castle. The Royal Military Canal, “Mr. Pitt’s Ditch”, was dug, stretching eventually from Hythe to Cliff End, Pett, and Martello Towers were erected – but not withquite the speed that the situation seemed to demand, and naval and military volunteers were raised to support the regular forces of the Crown.

The Commander in Chief, the “Grand old Duke of York” , visited Hastings in August 1804 accompanied by Sir John Moore, officer commanding the troops based from Shorncliffe to Dungeness and they saw the main threat to be a landing between Dungerness and Beachy Head. An interesting change in the pattern of military deplymentstook place as a result of this view. Earlier invasion scares in the 1790′s had found the full time professional soldiery quartered further east andto the west of this area, around Canterbury and Brighton, but now the rapidly raised and less well trained militia that had previously guarded Rye and Hastings were replaced by regiments of regulars who had some knowledge of the business of war.

Wellesley’s Brigade

It is not surprising, therefore, that, even after Nelson’s comprehensive destruction of the bulk of the sea power of France and her allies at Trafalgar in October 1805, the government should dispatch a general with a proven record of vixtory in India to this crucial section of the coastline. Wellesley’s force, to which he was appointed on the 25th of February 1806, was a mere brigade, however, and many friends questioned how the general, having led “armies of 40,000 men in the field, having received the thanks of Parliament for his victories and having been made a Knight of the Bath, could submit to be reduced to the command of a brigade if infantry?” Sir Arthur’s answer was typical of the man. “For this plain reason, I am a nimmukwallah as we say in the east, that is have ate the King’s salt and therefore I conceive it to be my duty to serve with unhesitating zeal and cheerfulness, when and wherever, the King or his government may think proper to employ me”

 A monthly Army List from 1806 indicates that Wellesley’s brigade was a strong one consisting of well over 5,000 men and since it was neither sound generalship, nor indeed good common sense to place such a body of troops engaged upon coastal defence in one small town, the regiments were based at various locations throughout the area. 1,000 men were in purpose built barracks at Bexhill, another 1,100 were in temporary buildings in Battle, 2,000 were camped at Silverhill, Robertsbridge, 900 occupied newly erected barracks at Halton in Hastings and 350 were stationed at Rye and Playden. These figures changed as their commander redeployed his soldiers for training and other purposesand the late Kenneth Clarke recorded thattwo barracks sited on Rye Hill at one point housed 800 infantry with 168 cavalry and 80 infantry respectively.

It is interesting to note that Sir Arthur’s troops at Halton were fortunate to be stationed in brand new accommodation. The ancient and decayed barracks at Bopeep had obligingly burtn down due to a chimney fire in 1804 and replacements were provided at a cost of £8,541-10-2 in October 1805.

Marriage

Wellesley established his headquarters in a lodging house in the High Street, Hastings, opposite the fine old Swan Hotel. His time actually living there must have been brief, since crossing to Dublin, he married on the 10th April at St George’s church in that city, Catherine Sarah Dorothea, third daughter of the 2nd Baron Longford. On their return, he and his bride set up home at Hastings House, a grand Palladian mansion adjacent to All Saints Church – later demolished by developers in the 1860′s to be replaced by Old Humphrey Avenue.

While “Kitty” , the new Lady Wellesley, busied herself in making a comfortable domestic environment for her beloved Arthur, the general himself exercised his mind with the problems fo effective counter measures to possible invasion andfurther found time to read papers on “Rye inundations and the military virtues of Winchelsea ( Camber ) Castle”.

MP for Rye

Other matters occupied him too. Early in the month of his marriage, he had been returned as Borough Member of Parliament for Rye, not becuasehe felt a desire for prolonged triumphs in that arena, but in order that he might defend his elder brother Richard, Marquis Wellesley, recently returned from India and facing the possibility of impeachment for his management of the post of Governor General. Philp Guedalla, in The Duke, (1931) describes Wellesley’s election in some detail: “The campaign was not exacting, since the Rye electors listened more closely to their proprietor than to any candidate. Their simple appetites appear in Wellesay’s accounts and totalled £367/17/6 (in food, wine and other expenses),

Light Relief

brigade had more than just a military effect upon the neighbourhood of Rye and Hastings. It will be recalled what influence the presence of the dashing had on the Bennet girls, in Pride and Prejudice especially Lydia. Balls were organised by the Hastings garrison, sometimes only concluding at 5am “when the company retired highly delighted with the elegance of the entertainment and the extreme politeness of the officers”, and special performances were requested at the local theatres. In July 1806, one of Sir Arthur’s colonels, Houghton of the 8th Foot, and the officers of the regiment asked that the “celebrated tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, be presented at the Theatre, Hastings, together – to afford light releif, no doubt, “the comic opera of the Poor Soldier”. This combined performance was for one night only, the theatre, adjoining the Hare and Hounds at Ore, reverting to what was, one imagines, the more popular fare of “Laugh when you can” and “Love laughs at Locksmiths”.

Royal Approval

The high point, in military terms of Wellesley’s service in Suissex was reached on the 10th of August 1806, when the Duke of York came to review the young major general’s command. He and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, arrived from Hythe, towed along the Military Canal in a boat drawn by three horses. They were welcomed with a royal salute from the East battery of Captain Gill’s Cinque Port Artillary sited in the Gungarden. After spending two hours at the George, the royal Dukes inspected the forces, consisting of infantry, two troops of the 17th Light Dragoons and the 1st Somerset Militia. The Duke, pleased with the performance  of his troops, thanked Sir Arthur and proceeded via Cliff End to Hastings. There, according to some unsubstantiated sources, a banquet was held in honour of Wellesley. Be that as it may there seems little doubt the York and Cambridge took refreshment at the Swan Hotel and that Sir Arthur entertained them at Hastings House. The following day the royal pair departed to meet their elder brother at his favourite resort of Brighton.

Warden of the Cinque Ports

The general’s time at Rye and Hastings ended in December 1806, when he was posted to Deal, but his connections with the area were top be renewed when, in 1829, as Duke of Wellington, he was installed as Lord Warden of the CinquePorts. Even after his death in 1852, the force of his personality was still felt by the tow towns. The Mayor of Hastings, Thomas Hickes, on the announcement of the old soldier’s demise, journeyed to Rye, whose own Mayor, E.S.Banks, held the post of Speaker of the Cinque Ports that year, to suggest that a meeting should be convened to see that “every possible respect to the memory of the illustrious deceased ” be paid. Much to Mr. Hickes’ surprise, Mr. Banks declined to “give himself, any trouble in the matter”. “The Duke was a very good man, I dare say”, he added, “he is dead now, so why make any fuss? Let them bury him”.

Acting independently of the unconcerned Speaker, the Mayors of Hastings, Sandwich and New Romney waited on the Prime Minister, Lord Derby,and the eventual result was that a carriage for four persons, representing the Cinque Ports, was to be included in the funeral procession on November 18th. A meeting was held in Rye on October 28th to decide who should represent the Confederation and the shameless Mayor of Rye claimed the right to be one of the privileged four as the current Speaker. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the other Ports rejected this claim and the carriage that followed the great Duke on his final march contained the first citizens of Dover, Sandwich, New Romney and Hastings.