An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY The next day I sold the William Street house, thereby losing £roo by my guarantee for Mrs. L'E strauge. During the year (1885) I brought out four works; I, the Report on the MSS. of the Gawdy family, published by the Historical MSS. Commissioners. I had bought this and the Hare, Le Neve*,· Knyvett, and Hobart papers, once in the Frere collection, and afterwards in that of Mr. D. Gurney, by private contract, and as soon as I had done calendaring them, re-sold them to the British Museum Library, where they now are forming part of its MSS. 2, The Monumental Inscriptions in the Hundred of Holt, which W. N. Dew had compiled fqr me. 3, The murder of Amy Robsart, a subject which bad been intro– duced to me by the Hon. F. Walpole, who wrongly thought her bis ancestress. 4, A History of Norfolk in Elliot Stock's Popular County Histories,a book on which I had b<"'en work– ing for year::;, and which was very favourably received. So it can be imagined the year 1885 was a very busy one for me. In February, 1886, I was consulted by the plaintiff in the case of Stanley v. the Mayor of N orwicb, which was au action brought to declare that the Town Close Estate at Norwich belonged to the freemen of that city individually and not to the Corporation of Norwich, the reason for my being so connected. I understood, was because T bad somewhat severely criticized the way in which a former action brought against the Commoners of Mousehold Heath had been conducted anrl. bad given my rea. ons for doing so. I went into the matter thoroughly during the month of February, and came to the conclusion that the Freemen could win jf the case were properly got np, and t4e result proved I was right, but it gave me an immense deal of trouble to get up the evidence and print the agreed book, and for the rest of the year my time was very fully taken up in doing so and in journeys to and from Norwich. My spare time this year was spent in trying to work a centre-hoard boat between Putney and Hammersmith, with distinguished want of success owing to the stroug tides and the gusty and patchy winds through the trees, and in May I was allowed to begin tricycling again. *The Le Neve letters were calendared by my brother, F. Rye, and the Cale11<lar was pri11ted with an introduction hy myself in 1895. The Calelldar of tlle K11yvett, Hare, a11d Hobart letters are still with me. The total collection of 3276 <locuments were bound in 17 folio volumes.