THE FIRST JEAKES OF RYE

Of Huguenot origin, the family’s first settler in Rye appears to have been a late 16th-century merchant, William Jeaque (a possible corruption of Jacques). His son Henry set up a bakery in the High Street and married a girl from Peasmarsh. Their son, first recorded as Sammewell but later as Samuel, became a freeman of Rye and its Town Clerk. He bought for a guinea the entire collection of statutes belonging to the borough, and from them produced a scholarly volume, The Charters of the Cinque Ports, Two Ancient Towns and their Members. Throughout his life he remained a staunch Presbyterian – or Dissenter – which was no hindrance during the Cromwellian years, but caused him trouble after the Restoration of Charles II, when the Act of Uniformity denied freedom of worship and preaching – “holding forth” -by Nonconformists. Threatened with prosecution 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.

SAMUEL JEAKES II

This son, Samuel Jeake II, was equally firm in his Presbyterian beliefs, but also had an incongruous interest in astrology. As a hard-headed merchant in wool, hops, money-lending and shrewd investments, he nevertheless turned to the stars for guidance before deciding to become one of the first subscribers to the newly formed Bank of England. Sustaining no injury after hitting his head against a door, he ascribed this to the relative positions of the planets at the time. Contemplating marriage, he worked out the details of the dowry he expected from the young lady’s widowed mother, but was not confident of the girl’s own response until “the Cluster of Planets . . . seem’d to shew a successful time for such addresses.” As a result, at the age of 29 he married Elizabeth Hartshorne, daughter of the late headmaster of the Grammar School in High Street, when she was 13 years of age. Always prone to depression, ague and other ailments, shortly after the betrothal he was “surprised . . . with excessive Melancholy, which lasted all September and October” during which “there arose great displeasure & difference between me and my intended Mother in Law and Wife.” Not a good omen for wedded bliss ! But by November he had recovered, and for once thanked God rather than a conformation of planets.

Samuel II followed in his father’s footsteps by being made a freeman of Rye in 1690, but the very next day sent his mother-in-law and daughter out of the town because of the scare of a French invasion. He and his wife remained “since my little Boy was this morning taken sick of a feaver, & very bad, so that he could not be carried without danger of his Life.” When no attack was forthcoming, he ascribed this to heavenly intervention, and sketched the horoscope in his diary.

This diary contains day-by-day accounts of his business dealings and local events, each entry preceded by the astrological symbol for the day. Personal matters such as his marital relations and quarrels were camouflaged in a form of shorthand as tricky as Samuel Pepys’s, but solved and transcribed in the 20th century.

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.

Hartshorn House c1870

THE OLD HOSPITAL

On the north side of Mermaid Street is a half-timbered Tudor building with three overhanging gables, called the Old Hospital because of its service in that capacity during the Napoleonic wars. In earlier times it had been Hartshorne House, given to Samuel Jeake II as part of his dowry on marrying the young Elizabeth Hartshorne, whereupon it became generally known as Jcake’s House – confusing for later historians

Samuel and his father took possession of this property several months before the actual wedding, though the younger man complained repeatedly before and after marriage about mischievous spirits of a rather inferior order groaning and sighing about his bed and playing pranks with his walking sticks.
As trade prospered, he determined to build a wool storehouse on the other side of the street, and consulted the stars regarding the most propitious date.

JEAKE’S HOUSE  Precisely at noon on 13th June 1689,, the foundation of the storehouse, which is now simply called Jeake’s House, was laid, “the first stone by myself under this positure of heaven.” A stone plaque set high in the front wall of the present building shows the astrological aspect of the heavens which he found so crucial.

Samuel and Elizabeth had six children, all of whom died without issue. Towards the 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.

QUAKERS’ HOUSE

In 1704 the Quakers, flourishing in and around Rye, bought the meetinghouse and laid out a burial ground behind it. In 1753 it was bought by the Baptists, in such a derelict state that it had to be virtually demolished and rebuilt in its present form. The baptistry still exists below the floor of the dining room; but guests eating breakfast need not fear a sudden plunge into the water. Jeake’s House itself later became the Baptist schoolroom. Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, visited during a tour of Sussex, and is believed to have addressed the congregation. In 1909 the Baptists built a new chapel in Cinque Ports Street, and their Mermaid Street buildings were sold off. Jeake’s House became a private residence, while the, meeting-house served for several years as St. Mary’s Men’s Club.

Adjoining the meeting-house, this was also known as the Minister’s House. One incumbent, the Rev. Purdy, had the building consecrated so that he could hold services there after a schism with his congregation. In the 20th century it became a private residence, the property of the painter Perugini, and for a time before and after the Second World War was the home of the great-uncle of the present proprietor, Jenny Hadfield, before its present amalgamation with the Jeake’s House complex.

FAMILIES AND VISITORS

In January 1924 the American poet, novelist and critic Conrad Aiken bought Jeake’s House for £1700 – “So vast, so tall the establishment that we are sure that at the end of a year we shall encounter, here and there, rooms unnoticed before, filled with mice and foul with bats, squealing with rats and roped with webs, littered with bones and stinking of ghosts.” As time went on he changed his mind, referring to it as his “deeply cherished home … lighted by laughter, the kind of light that never goes out.” Certainly the present owner will have no truck with bats, rats or malodorous phantoms.

In 1928 Aiken also bought the Men’s Club and began the task of combining the two which has been further developed today. He was visited by local and American friends, including Dame Laura Knight, E. F. Benson, Thomas Hardy’s widow, T. S. Eliot, and the wayward Malcolm Lowry, with whom he had many protracted drinking sessions.

In more recent vears, Patrick Moore stayed here while lecturing on astrology and astronomy in connection with the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jeake’s House. It is frequently used as a base by visiting members of the Tilling Society, devoted to the works of E. F. Benson, who disguised Rye under the name of Tilling (after the local River Tillingham) in the Mapp and Lucia novels written while he lived in Lamb House, round the corner in West Street.

Jeake's House

Mermaid Street

A 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 1891 education act had finally made schooling free, so most of the school age children are listed as scholars, and although there were many small private schools in the town, the majority of these poorer children would have gone to one of the two ‘Board Schools’ in either Mermaid Street or Lion Street.

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) and at that time 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.  

Washerwoman at work Mermaid Passage c1890

OccupationsThere 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.  

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

The Wealthy

Jeake's House

There were a few more affluent people listed, including a wine and spirit merchant, Henry Pepper, who had two servants. Henry Pepper lived in what is now called the First House (1 Mermaid Street) with his wife and baby son. Sadly, even among the more affluent, the mortality rate was high, and within five years both Henry and his wife had died.  

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.  

Jeake’s House, further down the street, has a particularly interesting history. For a separate article on Jeake’s House  click here.    

There are also six people listed as living on own means, but these means may have been 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 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.  

Hartshorn House c1870

This 16th century 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.   ]]> http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/index.php/2009/11/mermaid-street-in-1891-2/feed/ 0 http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/index.php/2009/11/spot-the-differences/ http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/index.php/2009/11/spot-the-differences/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:58:08 +0000 jean http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/?p=1738 These are old photos of  what we now know as Watchbell Street,  the south side of Church Square and Pump Street.  Can you recognse where the photos were taken and say  what changes have occurred since?

Once on Watchbell Street with photos from Victorian times

A visitor from the 1840s visiting Rye today would recognise much of  it:  the Landgate, the street pattern within the walls, Ypres Tower, the stone buildings that survived the fire of 1377,  many of the houses, the cobbles, but oh, how much else has changed!   Take Watchbell Street as an example:

First, note that the visitor’s Watchbell Street  included the south side of Church Square whose four sides lost their original names only in 1859.   So  what follows applies to the original Watchbell Street

Population

• Today fewer than 50 people live on the stretch between the Hope Anchor and the Methodist Church (which of course was not there in our visitor’s day)–and not a single one of them is a child.  In the 1840s there were nearly five times that number (285 persons in 1841), and a third of these were children!  
• In that year a detour down Hucksteps Row would have found  some 80 futher residents, over half of them children,  in 17 houses.  (Today would find fewer than 10 persons in  6 houses).  There were multiple interretionshps among neighbours.  A child might have 35 cousins living nearby.
• Households contained up to 10 people, usually a mixture of generations and relatives. For example,  in one household lived a widower with a grown unmarried daughter, a widowed son with his child, a niece, a couple of lodgers or ‘scholars’,  an annuitant relative and a relative of ‘deranged mind’ (a census term)….    Some households  had live-in servants. 
• Though Rye’s mortality rate was better than many towns,  there were many widows of men who drowned at sea and many children being raised by grandparents, single parents or aunts because their mother had died in childbirth.  With no provision for the unemployed there were many paupers, and there was no provision for the ‘mentally deranged’.   
• Rich and poor lived cheek by jowl in the 1500s and 1600s, then separated for tax reasons. but in the 1800s they were well mixed again:  fishermen, agricultural labourers, journeymen (carpenters, blacksmiths, bootmakers without their own work premises);  shipbuilders, merchants,  solicitors, gentry;  people who became mayors, town clerks, head of the workhouse or borough officers.  One solicitor/town clerk sent his son to Oxford.

Occupations

• Most men were in marine occupations:  shipwrights,  mariners, pilots, smack owners, fishermen,  ships’ carpenters, etc. — or in related services (mainly provisions and clothing). They  would be up and down the various steps then leading  down the cliff to the shipyards because the Strand in the mid 19th century was busy and prosperous–(and noisy with all the hammering, loading and unloading).  Large numbers of well-regarded ships were built here and travelled all over the world carrying emigrants as well as goods.   Regular packets sailed to Boulogne and  London. 
• What of  the women?  Spinsters and widows were female servants,  charwomen, laundresses, dressmakers, milliners, straw bonnet makers, shrimpsellers;  there was a lady who ‘picks and gets ready all kinds of poultry, game, etc. in the shortest notice’. But there were also a growing number of schoolmistresses, governesses and ‘companions’.   Although a wife belonged to the husband and had few if any rights to property, children or even their  own inheritance, there were some notable exceptions on Watchbell Street:  grocers,  pub managers, property owners, gentry….  (They deserve an article of their own.) 
• Few children went to school in 1840; parents couldn’t afford the penny a week  fee, or shoes for their children who in any case were needed  to work. However, schooling was slowly becoming ‘normal’  even before it became compulsory in 1880, and during Victorian and Edwardian times there were at least ten schools of various types and sizes on Watchbell Street.  You can read about them in the Schools and Education article.
• During the Victorian years (1837-1901), Watchbell Street provided ten  of the town mayors. serving up to 11 years each–and that doesn’t count five times mayor Jeremiah Smith who owned houses on Watchbell Street but did not himself live here. The street also  provided all three Town Clerks of the period, as well as Clerks of the Peace, Justices of the Peace, the Headmaster of Thomas Peacocke, heads of shipbuilding firms, the Harbourmaster and the Clerk of the Rye Union (workhouse).

 Living Conditions

• Water had to be fetched until 1880, and there were outdoor privies, usually at the bottom of the garden, until the 1920s and later.  You would probably rather not imagine how the street smelled what with no indoor sanitation and fish drying everywhere.  Candles were used for lighting into the 1930s, though there were some gas street lights from 1846.   
• For most people, the only means of transport was their own feet, though boats did ply the river.   The town was transformed by the railway which arrived in 1841.  With the railway came new blood. No longer had everyone who lived here been born within a radius of a few miles with everyone related to everyone else.

There is lots more to come on the streets of Rye in former times!   In the meantime here are some photos of  Watchbell Street, mostly from the 1890s.    Can you spot the changes betweenthen and now?    Click on the iimages to see them full size.