Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/349

 10 s. xii. OCT. 9, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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JAMES BURTON, JAMES BIBKETT, AND ST. LEONARDS. In the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden of Gloucester Lodge, Sfc. Leonards, is a red granite drinking- fountain, with an obelisk some nine feet high on a pedestal, standing upon a raised stone platform with two steps. On one side is a medallion in relief of " James Burton, Founder of St. Leonards, 1828. Born 1761. Died 1837 " ; and upon the other is this inscription :

" These gardens formed | 1829 | were dedicated to the Public | By the Borough Authorities | 1880 | Mainly through the action of | James Birkett."

This monument was made for the Misses Woods, the granddaughters of James Burton, and was intended to commemorate the purchase, for the public, of the St. Leonards Public Gardens, Maze Hill, partly from private and partly from public money. The Mayor and Corporation took affront at the inscription, and refused to accept the memorial, whereupon it was erected by the ladies in the garden of Gloucester Lodge, which they then owned, at the top of the Gardens. A subsequent offer of the fountain, coupled with the removal of the name of James Birkett, was also refused. His name is surrounded by an incised line. He was an eminent Liverpool solicitor, who retired to Maze Hill, St. Leonards, in 1864, where he died in 1891.

Gloucester Lodge was built by James Burton, and called after Princess Sophia of Gloucester, who lived in it for some time in the days when the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria were living in a house on the Marina (now No. 57, the Nursing Home). Decimus Burton, the architect of part of Regent Street, Regent's Park, and the Hyde Park arches, was a son of James Burton. The house is now occupied by Dr. Walther. R. S. B. "

GREEN, M.D., OF LIVERPOOL. This medical man has been somewhat badly used, inasmuch as his literary work has been by Allibone all put down to the credit of Wm. Green, M.A., Rector of Hard- ingham, co. Norfolk, who wrote several translations of the poetical portions of the Bible, and who appears in the ' D.N.B.'

Walter Green does not figure there, though his claim to do so is at least as good. He appears to have been born about 1713, probably in Liverpool ; at least he seems to have lived at the one address there in Union Street almost all his life. He must have taken his M.D. comparatively early, as he appears as such in a list of subscribers

to an old Liverpool book called ' Disserta- tion on the Hebrew Vowel Points,' pub- lished in 1748. He is also mentioned in the first Liverpool Directory in 1766. He published ' Translations from Horace ' at Liverpool in 1777, of which there was a second edition in 1783 ; and in the latter year he also published ' Translations ' from Virgil and from Ovid.

Dr. Green died in August, 1788, aged 75 years, and was buried in St. Nicholas's- Churchyard. He appears to have been unmarried, for his will, proved at Chester by two well-known Liverpool doctors, Joseph Brandreth and Ed. Alanson, makes no mention of any relations, but leaves all his possessions to Mr. James Lea and his wife and children of Goors Bridge, Birchley Hall (5 miles N.W. of Coventry ?).

There is a small engraving of him in the Athenaeum, Liverpool, taken from an alto- relievo in marble in 1790 by J. Hindley ; but I can find no trace of the original.

A. H. ARKLE.

Elmhurst, Oxton, Birkenhead.

SARDINIAN CHAPEL : ITS CLOSING. On 4 July, services were celebrated for the last time in this historic building. The Arch- bishop of Westminster preached, and every Eart of the chapel was thronged. The uilding dated from 1689 or thereabouts, but as early as 1648 " Mass was said in the house of a widow on the left-hand side of Duke Street." In 1852 the chapel was called for the last time the Sardinian Chapel ; and in 1853 we find the title changed to St. Anselm's, Duke Street, and in 1861 to St. Anselm and St. Cecilia, by which title it has been known ever since. Its place has been taken by a new church in Kingsway, whither the very interesting church plate and vestments and the extremely valuable registers have been removed.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

JUAN FERNANDEZ : AN EARLY CRUSOE. In ' The History of the Bucaniers of America/ 1684-5, vol. ii. p. 119, is the following :

" On the third of January we had terrible gusts of wind from the shoar every hour. This day our Pilot told us, that many years ago a certain ship was cast away upon this Island, and only one man saved, who lived alone upon the Island five years before any ship came this way to carry him oft"

The island is Juan Fernandez. The year was 1680. The author of vol. ii. was " Mr. Basil Ringrose." Allibone gives 1685 as the date of the first edition.

If the story is true, there was a man ship- wrecked like Robinson Crusoe, living for five