Rye Grammar School

Old Grammar School 1903
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

I have a great-grandfather and several of his brothers who went to this grammar school in the 1830s and 1840s and they all had very nice writing with perfect copperplate. So maybe the severity on the outside was reflected in the teaching on the inside. My great-grandfather wrote with a quill pen on paper and I wonder whether anyone knows whether he used a quill at school. He knew a lot about New Zealand before he emigrated in 1849 and I also wonder whether he gained this knowledge from this school. This photo has been most interesting and gives me a much better idea of what school was like in my gr grandfather's time. He must have been taught well as he went on to become a most successful businessman. His father was a licensee at the the Barley Mow and Bedford Arms in Rye and they lived in a house shown as 'Cottage under the Cliff' in what I presume could be Undercliff Road or Fishmarket Road in the collection of photos by the Rye photographer Robert Baggallay Thorpe in 1866. It may still be there although the thatched roof would be long gone. Anyway it would be great if anyone else had something to add about the grammar school and the 'Under the Cliff' photo.