An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY Our Athletic Club, the T.H. & H. bad a good deal to do with this :chool and held here very successful meetings at the Spread Eagle, Wandsworth, to raise funds for its help. In April I brought home a black briony root and put into our little greenhouse, and one hot day it grew inches when we set down to lunch, and in all 38 inches in one month. On the 14th April I pasted in the slips of what was the germ of my big index to Norfolk Topography. On 6th June R. H. was called to Middle Temple. On the r4th June I tried for an old house on the West Hill, which had square panels all over the ground floor, old oak staircase, big bedroom with a carved stone flowers and fruit mantel piece, and Dutch tiles in attics, but they asked too much. My eldest son, James Bacon Rye, 1 was born at Wands– worth, on 22nd July, 1871, at 12 noon. On the 2nd August wa · the Thames Mutual Mile Handicap, each man handicapping all but himself, and it proved a great success. At the end of August I took a walking tour, partly on business, through Nottingham, Worksop, Cresswell, and Barlborougb, to see Whitwell, the old home of the senior branch of the Rye family and saw the monu– ments, then on to Lincoln. from thence to Boston, Aslackby, and Gosberton to see the Rye "Crusader" monument. Working towards Lynn I walked along to Foss dyke, Holbeach, Sutton Bridge, and at last found my way, ex– tremely tired, to ·Lynn, where I put up at the '' Globe," in Tuesday Market Place, for the first time for 45 years, but was too done to eat, the walk being an extremely exhausting one, burdened as I was with a knapsack and having to climb what seemed to me hundreds of tall locked gates by the river bank. This escapade ended in a serious attack I He was erlucated al a Preparatory 'chool at Selhurst, then at the Whitgift Grammar chool, and afterwards at St. Paul's. Marking his early aptitude for history I suggested to Mr. Walker, the then Head Master, that he might bave a chauce for a history scholarship, but he deprecated tbe idea and recommended his postponement for a trial for some years. However. I knew better, and after careful coaching by my old friend Howlett, he won an open History Scholarship at Balliol, Oxforcl, and going into residence there followed it up with a first in History Greats and the Arnold prize., besides getting his running blue. For a portrait of Howlett, my oldest and best friend, aud one of the cleverest men I ever knew,. see p. 16 ante.