An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 They bad (besides daughters) an elder son, Robert Rye,. born 1772, who followed my grandfather's successful entrance into London business, married Mary Willcox at St. James', Westminster, on 6th April, 1807, and joined his brother's Company, the Needlemakers, on 8th October,. 1807. He seems to have been an unlucky man, for he broke his leg in a coach accident in Wales in 1312, and I do not know what became of him except that he had two sons, James who ran away to sea, and Richard, and was living as late as r844. My great grandfather, James Rye, died 16th January,. 1829, at Thurgarton while on a visit there, but was buried by my grandfather in Baconsthorpe Churchyard, where there are still stones to himself and his wife. He lived to be 86, and has been described to me as a little old wizened man. John Chapman of Hanworth, who was a cousin of ours, born 1817 (his mother being Easter Rye, sister of my grandfather), told me he remembered this well, so about 1885 I took my eldest son when a boy to speak to him, and so make a memory-link between the son now living (1916) with a man who had spoken to a man born two years before the rebellion of 1745. Mr. Preston, of Lammas, who died last year aged 89 (born 1823), told me he also remembered my great grandfather, but as he was only six when he died I doubt it. 8. Edward Rye, the elder, second son of James Rye, of Baconsthorpe, by Hannah Thaxter his wife, was born at Baconsthorpe, and baptised there on July 24th, 1774. He is said to have so greatly disliked the routine of farming that he ran away from home. An old memor– andum made by rne lo!lg ago says that he settled in early life at Wells-by-the-Sea as an owner of colliers, but suffering greatly by the failure of a local bank left for London, where he estahlished himself as a wine merchant. Considering, however. that I can trace no local bank failure about this time, that he was only 25 when he married, and that he married before he went to London, this seems highly improbable. Whether in choosing his trade he was influenced by traditions of smuggling ancestors both on his father's and wife's sides, or similar early experiences of his own, I will not pretend to say, but Mr. Preston, of Lammas, who said he knew his father, frankly admitted that his own father was a smuggler.