Morning all ready for another exciting instalment of the Procter saga?

 last time we looked at Thomas, he arrived in Rye with nothing yet by the time he died he left his three children well provided for. the brewery must have been doing a roaring trade because in the late 1780's he left them with both cash and property. the two daughters were well looked after but of course most of the assets went to Nathaniel his only son. Nathaniel had both house and business and almost all the family plate and silver. But he was too young at the time of his father's death to inherit in his own right which was why Thomas's wife continued to run the business you know the woman who was supposed to have had the affair and caused the tower to be built.

 Nathaniel would have to wait three years to inherit it all and then only when he was married. i wonder if that was why the union between the Procter's and the Lambs was organised. hence the photograph of Lamb house, Nathaniel's wife Ann lived there not one hundred yards from where Nathaniel was raised.

The lamb family were influential in Rye arriving about the same time as Thomas did. Very quickly a small number of families took the town over, running the council, becoming Mayors organising who from this rotten borough would be elected as MP (in fact Rye sent two MP's to London not bad for a town with less than 500 voting residents. sadly no doubt my own family were as involved as the Lambs, we intermarried into all the wealthy families and bought what they could to increase their hold on the town.

Nathaniel and Ann had 12 children but only five survived. The eldest Thomas is my direct ancestor. Of the others James died at sea having joined the Royal navy at nine years old. William served abroad as a surveyor and eventually went to Tasmania where he took over as customs Controller in Hobart before retiring to his homestead. His is a tale on its own perhaps one day i will explain all but suffice to say there was a Procter Road and a lot of Australian Procter's are descendants from this one man. My own 6x Grandfather Thomas went on to become Town clerk of Rye his father Nathaniel Mayor and influential businessman.

Nathaniel was deeply religious and a wonderful fiddle player. He sang in the church choir before returning to his Inn directly outside the church where he played his fiddle for anyone willing to pay. Eventually Nathaniel sold his warehouses on the strand in Rye complete with contents to take over as customs officer. i still maintain he was involved in some way or did he turn gamekeeper informing on those he once helped? Who knows makes a nice story though. Was Nathaniel a rogue? Of course but he remains the one family member I would have loved to have known.    
     

The image here is of the Strand and the warehouses
that remain both would have once belonged to Nathaniel and where you see cars the dockside would have been with ships awaiting loading. here also is a pub named the 'Ship' on entering you stand within what would have been Nathaniel's office or counting house as it would have been known. Upstairs in a room used as storage, his name is carved into a beam.  

More later if desired.

Dave