This year’s mayor making in Rye has an extra significance, with events marking the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Rye Town Council. The ceremony, which includes the tradition of throwing hot pennies from the town hall window for local children to collect, takes place at lunchtime this Bank Holiday Monday May 6.
Andy Stuart is likely to be officially elected mayor before a church service takes place at St Mary’s at 11:45am. All the surviving mayors from the past fifty years have been invited and Rye’s town crier Paul Goring and his deputy Arabella Ansar will give a two-handed cry celebrating the town council’s history. On top of twenty pounds of pennies, twenty five pounds of fifty pence pieces will also be thrown from the first floor of the town hall around 12:30pm.
There are two theories why hot pennies are thrown. One is that the coins were fresh from Rye’s mint, though historians now think this is unlikely. The more plausible theory is that the coins were heated to give more children a fair chance of collecting them.
Former Rye mayor EF Benson describes the ceremony in his book Final Edition. “I and other councillors threw bagfulls of pennies to be scrambled for according to immemorial custom by the children of Rye assembled in the street below. The pennies used once to be heated so that the donors might enjoy the medieval amusement of seeing the children burn their fingers when they picked them up, thus combining a mild sadism with inexpensive charity.”
Monday, May 6 timetable
11.45am: St Mary’s Church. All guests to be seated by 11:40am
12:30pm: “Throwing of the hot pennies”. The public should gather outside the town hall from 12:15pm, with the pennies thrown at about 12.30pm.
Rye Town Council was created in 1974 as part of extensive reorganisation of local government in England, including the establishment of Rother District Council.
Rye News will have a full report from the ceremony and an interview with our new mayor next week.
Image Credits: Ian Taylor CC , Kt bruce .