A Passion for Records: Walter Rye (1843-1929), Topographer, Sportsman and Norfolk’s Champion

The biography of an enigmatic Victorian pioneer. The first critical appraisal of this sporting legend and antiquary, using his own archives and writings. Important glimpses of everyday Victorian life. Suitable for those with interests in sport, local history, genealogy and record editing.

Walter Rye was a London solicitor until he retired to Norwich, but it was three spare-time passions that earned him his place in the Dictionary of National Biography: physical exercise, record-searching, and a devotion to his ancestral county of Norfolk.

His love of the outdoors was unbounded: athlete, cyclist, sailor and archer, keen amateur gardener and naturalist. Despite this, mortal illness seemed to stalk him, and yet he lived well into his eighties.

In A Passion for Records, Rye’s prolific writings as author, columnist and correspondent, replete with witty put-downs, offer many laugh-out-loud moments. His antiquarian writings invite more serious attention, after cautionary tales about his editorial techniques.