Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/442

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. XL MAY s, im

Radbourne ; and so forth. There are more elsewhere.

In the North the more usual spelling is " burn " ; as in Burnside and Cliburn, Westm. ; Fishburn, Durham ; Kilburn, Kirkburn, Nunburnholm, Ouseburn, Glus- burn, Slaidburn, Sockburn, in Yorkshire, &c. Yet Westmorland has a Milbourne.

As to Kilburn, Middlesex, we should notice that there is another Kilburn in Yorkshire, and a Kilbourne in Derbyshire. Lambourn in Berks may be compared with Lambrook in Somerset. The use of Bourn, standing alone, as in Cambs and Lines, is no more surprising than the occurrence of Brook, both in Kent and in the Isle of Wight, and of Brooke, in Rutland and Norfolk. And, finally, it is interesting to notice that both Bourn and Brook, beginning as names of streams, were advanced to becoming names of villages, and were then further employed as personal surnames. It is not meant that the man himself (any more^than the village) was either " a bourn " or " a brook."

WALTER W. SKEAT.

LORD BEACONSFIELD'S FIRST SCHOOLMASTER.

THIS is stated, in a communication at 10 S. ix. 46, to have been the Rev. George Potticary, who personally claimed this distinction. What foundation there may have been for this shall shortly appear. The actual schoolmaster, in any case, was not George, but John Potticary, respecting whom the following particulars may not be entirely without interest.

John Potticary, born 1763 (R. B. Asp- land's ' Mem. of R. Aspland ' ), was a son of Christopher Potticary, a watchcase maker of Bridgewater Square, London. This Chris- topher was son of Nathaniel and grandson of Nathaniel, both of Marlborough. Nathaniel, father of Christopher and grandfather of John, married Elizabeth Merriman of Marl- borough, whose sister Mary married Thomas Morgan, M.D., then Dissenting minister at Marlborough, afterwards better known as a Deistical writer (Hunter's ' Fam. Min. Gentium ').

On 27 April, 1776, John Potticary, aged 12, was admitted to St. Paul's School (' Adm. Registers'). He is said afterwards to have studied for the Dissenting ministry at Homerton College, though his name does not occur in the extant lists of students, which profess only to give " names of some of those who have passed through " (inform-

ation from the Rev. Dr. R. Vaughan Pryce). He was minister of the Congregational Church, Newport, Isle of Wight, from 1788 to 1800, first as co-pastor with Ellas Atkins- till 1790, then as sole pastor (information, from the Rev. Arthur Jones, Newport). He married a daughter of John Sturch, General Baptist Minister at Newport, and father of William Sturch (see 'Diet. Nat. Biog.'). It is probable that this alliance considering the known views of his father-in-law and', brother-in-law had something to do with his adoption of Unitarian opinions and retirement from the ministry. He was a. prominent member of the Philosophical Society at Newport ; and, in conjunction with his ministry, had conducted a pros- perous boarding and day school, which after his leaving the ministry was his means of support. He exercised no regular ministry among Unitarians, though he occasionally officiated in their pulpits.

In 1806 he removed his school to Black- heath. Among his boarders at Blackheath were Benjamin D'Israeli, from 1813 to 1817 (Senex in Daily News, 11 May, 1881), and contemporaneously Robert Brook Aspland (see ' Diet. Nat. Biog.'). Other contemporary pupils were Thomas Milner Gibson and the second Baron Congleton. Potticary took his Unitarian boarders to the Sunday ser- vices at the General Baptist Chapel, Dept- ford. A late legend would have it that D'Israeli was among those so taken ; but Aspland (ut sup.) states that Benjamin D'Israeli " at that time observed the rites of the Jewish faith " ; moreover, Aspland's personal testimony (to the present writer) was that a rabbi regularly came to give him religious instruction. Subsequently, D'Is- raeli was transferred to the school at Wal- thamstow of Eliezer Cogan (see ' Diet. Nat. Biog.').

Potticary was elected in 1814 a trustee of Dr. Daniel Williams' foundations, and held this position till 1820. Early in that year he retired from his school, owing to " disease of long standing," and removed to Bath (Mem. Repos., 1820, p. 187). Here he died on 3 March, 1820 (leaving a widow and three daughters). He was buried on 14 March in the churchyard of Batheaston, Bath. In the burial register his age is given as "57 years " (information from the Rev. A. M. Downes). This is also the age given in The Monthly Repository, in Jeremy's ' Presbyterian Fund and Dr. Williams* Trust ' and elsewhere ; but it is clear from the above data that the correct age was 56. Gent. Mag., 1820, p. 285, gives the date of