Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/142

 114 NOTES AND QUERIES. uo» s. iv. A™. 5,1905. antiquarian remains. I refer to his allusion to " William Nicolson, master of the Croydon Free School." The old records of Whitgif t's ancient Hospital contain many entries made by this William Nicolson, as also his signa- ture. The first record relating to this school- master is as follows (the old style of spelling I have not, in this instance, copied):— " William Nicolson, Master of Arts and chaplain of Magdalene College, Oxford, under the hand and seal from George Abbot, then Archbishop of Can- terbury, was sworn and admitted schoolmaster and brother of the Hospital of the Holy Trinity in Croydon, the 3rd day of July, 1616. retails sue •24, according to the statutes of the Hospital: in the room of Robert Davis." In 1629 Nicolson voluntarily resigned, the •old record of which is :— "I, William Nicolson, schoolmaster of the Free School of Croydon, of the foundation of the Right Reverend Father in God, John Whitgift, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, have voluntarily resigned up all my right, interest, and title to the place, into the hands of the Right Reverend Father in God, George, the now Archbishop of Canterbury, so that 1 will never hereafter lay any claim and title thereto." That Free School was founded by the arch- bishop's magnificent gift which built also and endowed the Hospital of the Holy Trinity, Croydon, for the maintenance of a warden, schoolmaster, and about forty poor men and women. Where is now the Free School ? It cannot be found ; but a magnificent school called Whitgift's (amply provided with masters, but hardly so with students) can ; but for whom ? why, a class which Whitgift did not, and never intended to, provide for, viz., those whose parents were and are able to pay for the education of their children. The poor for whom the good archbishop left property now producing anything between fifteen and twenty-five thousand pounds a year are thus literally robbed of their " rights, interest, and title." Thanks to our antiqua- rian and other learned societies, an attempt to sweep away the Elizabethan building itself has meanwhile been frustrated ; but the worse than vandal hand is only '• gloved." We have a Brigstock Road here, and there is a Brigstock mentioned in the Inquisition of Northants in 1517 ; and from the old records above referred to I find William Brigstock, of Croydon, was admitted as a brother to the Hospital of the Holy Trinity in 1662. Whether the personal name has any connexion with the place-name, or vice versd, I know not. ALFRED CHAS. JONAS. BENSON EARLE HILL (10th S. iii. 162. 472: iv. 51).—The solution, I fancy, is that Lieut. Hill, hearing that a Hastings had in 1819 taken his seat as Earl of Huntingdon, assumed that the earl was identical with the master gunner, whose name, I find, was Hastings, the ' Kentish Companion ' for 1799 giving his name in full: William Hastings, Chief Gunner, Folkestone Battery. R. J. FYNMORE. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL (10th S. iii. 468).— I possess a photograph of one of the leaves of a journal kept by the master of Kit's Quarry, near Burford. covering the period of the building of St. Paul's. Entries run as follows:— " September 20, 1672: then loaded into houses boat 8 tun 3 ffoot ffrom ratcat.* Paid him thirty shillings towards it, I/. 10*." "Sept. 21, 1672. Then was loaded into .Humphry Buffings boat 75 ffoot of stone at ratcat." " September26,1672. Then was loaded into houses boat 9 tun two foot from ratcat pd him then tiuety shiling, 2/. Ite." I have also seen the mural tablet to Christo- pher Kempster in Burford Church, which states that he " was for many years employed in the Building the Cathedral and Dome of St. Paul's." He died 12 August, 1715, aged eighty- eight. He left children whose issue continued to reside, down to the last decade, in the house which he built on Kit's Quarry in 1689. The house is still standing, and bears Kemp- ster's initials and the date. A very beautiful photograph of the house and quarry can be obtained from Mr. Foster, the post office, Burford. FRED. HITCHIN-KEMP. 6, Beechfield Road, Catford, 3.E. WILLIAM SHELLEY (10th S. iii. 441, 492 ; iv. 55).—Not only Berry, in his Hampshire and Sussex genealogies, but Sir Thomas Phillipps, in his 'Hampshire Visitations,' also calls William Shelley's brother-in-law "Sir George Cotton." MR. WAINEWRIGHT and H. C. are, however, correct in surmising he was not knighted. An inquisition was taken after his death, and both in the writ and in the inquisition itself he is called "esquire." The following is a short summary of the inquisi- tion, which was taken at Winchester 6 March, 7 James I. (1609/10). The said George was seised of the manors of Warblington and Bedhampton, and made settlement (1 September, 36 Elizabeth) by the name of George Cotton, of VVarblington, co. Southants, esquire, for the raising of por- tions for his daughters Katherine and Bar- bara Cotton, and his other children. He was also seised of the manor of Eastney, in Eastney and Kingston ; of the chief mansion-
 * Radcot on the Thames.