Rye Museum's Story

Jan 09 2010

Rye Museum’s Story


Jean Floyd

With special thanks to Jo Kirkham (RM&LHG Journal  61:2006)  and Rosemary Bagley (Rye’s Own 133:January 2002),  the most important of  varied sources for the information in this article

Beginnings

 The idea for the establishment of a museum in the Ypres Castle was first floated in 1889.  No museum was established then but the idea did not die. Planning continued and at last,  in 1927,  newly elected mayor  Leopold Vidler announced his determination to found a museum in his year of office. An existing Corporation Museum Committee was invigorated with new members and a public meeting to consider the proposal was called in February 1928.  

Battery House Battery House

It was decided to take on the Battery House—situated just north of the Ypres Tower– which had been bought by the Rye Corporation from the War Office in 1925, at a rent of £25 per annum. The Mayoress (Mrs Vidler) officially opened the Rye Museum on July 27th 1928–her husband  was Hon. Curator. The public were admitted at 6d a head and 2d each for parties of 12 or more persons.  Like the current museum it was entirely self-supporting and had to rely on visitors, volunteers and fund-raising for its continuation and development. (To this day, the museum has never received financial support from the local authorities.)  

 

 The outbreak of war in 1939, when the Museum was barely more than 10 years old, meant that its most valuable items had to be placed in storage. They were taken to the fireproof building of Wright and Pankhurst on Cinque Ports Street for safe-keeping and the museum itself was closed in 1940.  On September 22nd 1942, Battery House and the surrounding area, including the Methodist Church, were severely damaged in an air raid; this is when the Castle lost its pyramidal roof.   Ultimately Battery House had to be demolished and surviving exhibits remained in garages.

Rebirth

In 1953,  to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the Rotary Club of Rye and Winchelsea decided to mount an exhibition in the F E Centre on the history of Rye.  Leopold Vidler asked Geoffrey Bagley (Rotary Chairman) to help select and organise salvaged museum objects for the display.  Bagley, with much relevant experience and assisted by Walter Cole, took responsibility for the exhibition.  It was a huge success.

Clearly,  returning the objects to a dusty garage was unthinkable.   Geoffrey Bagley and Leopold Vidler arranged to lease the Ypres Tower—also damaged in the war—from the Corporation and began putting together an enlarged and enhanced exhibition in the ‘new’ Rye Museum.  They enlisted the help of Grammar School 6th formers,  took possession of old showcases from a bankrupt jeweller’s shop in Hastings and though the newly roofed Tower was still cold, dark, damp and windowless, they were ready within twelve months, at Easter 1954, to open to the public.   Geoffrey Bagley was Curator and remained so for the next 38 years, until his death in 1992. 

 It did not take long for visitor numbers to reach 33,000 a year and rising.  The Museum won a National Heritage Award in 1975, mainly due to Geoffrey Bagley’s meticulous attention to accuracy and detail and his artist’s eye for display.

The Museum’s Longest Serving Curator

 Geoffrey Bagley had training and experience in architecture, painting, poster design and book illustration and during the war had been seconded to the Canadian Navy as a War Artist with close connections to the Crown Film Unit of Britain’s war-time Ministry of Information. After the war, despite his growing reputation as a leading graphic artist—he was an art director for the National Film Board of Canada and his work was widely exhibited– he decided to return to his mother country and in 1948 settled down to paint in Rye.  He was a founder member of the Rye Society of  Artists which began exhibiting regularly in 1952 and his work was displayed at the Royal Academy. In 1953, however, events conspired to propel him into another career for which Rye honours him still.

What started it all was one of the Council’s less worthy decisions:  to plough up Rye churchyard.  The threat to what Bagley considered a painter’s dream so incensed him that he stood for Council—and was elected; he served until 1965.   He saw that Rye churchyard was saved—and so was much else in Rye.  Bagley’s new career path in Rye  included service on the Rye Planning Committee, three popular years as Mayor, twelve years on East Sussex County Council (much of them as Chairman of the County Records Committee), Justice of the Peace, , Speaker of the Cinque Ports, County Councillor. . . .  and more.  As an article in an early Rye’s Own  (8:2) reported, one of his many accomplishments was to rescue Cinque Ports and Rye records

    . . . priceless to scholars and students.   A few of Rye’s most famous had been lodged for the War in the vaults of a bank. But the greater partwere scattered in a dirty chaos all over the floors of the Town Hall attics, to a depth of several feet. It was a sight to make strong men weep. One of those who wept and toiled, until his death, was Capt. Leo Vidler.

During his years as Museum Curator, Vidler had authored  A New History of Rye (1934), still a standard work on the town’s history,  but there was so much more to research and record.   Once again, Geoffrey Bagley came to the rescue, ensuring that the records were properly organised, stored and catalogued  in the County Archive at Lewes so that they could be used by researchers. It was for this that the Rye Corporation offered him Honorary Freedom of the Town in 1973.  He was the last Freeman of Rye.

During his time as Curator,  and in addition to his activities as Rye’s leading artist,  Bagley researched and wrote on many aspects of the town’s history.  His publications include:  Official Guide to Rye, Old Inns and Alehouses, William Holloway, A Prospect of Rye, Connoisseur’s Guide to Rye, Edwardian Rye, Rye Church Clock, Pictorial Guide to Romney Marsh, The Story of the Ypres Tower,  Rye Museum…..  The most substantial work,  A Book of Rye,  was presented to the Duchess of Kent when she visited Rye in April 1992.

To be continued

The story does not end here.   The Tower started to become damp in the 1980’s and so, eventually, the 3 East Street premises, a former bottling factory, were acquired as well and this was opened in 1999.  Visitors to Rye can now visit both Museum sites. Neither holds as much as we would like to show, there is still much to do, but to judge from comments in the Visitors’ Books,  those who come find the glimpses of Rye’s past on display fascinating—and often return.  For more recent history and information about today’s museum see Ypres Tower site and East Street site