Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/203

 io"S.v.MAucH3,i906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

163-.

this Charles Reade writes that in 1858 a friend of his

" had business with a firm of solicitors, the senior partner in which had in his youth been in a house that acted for Lord Camelford. He said that pre- parations were actually made to carry out Lord Camelford's wishes as to the disposal of his re- mains. He was embalmed and packed up for transportation. But at that very nick of time war was proclaimed again, and the body, which was then deposited, pro tempore,in St. Anne's Church in Soho, remained there awaiting better times. The war lasted a long while, and, naturally enough, Camelford's body was forgotten. After Europe was settled it struck the solicitor, who was my friend's informant, that Camelford had never been shipped for Switzerland. He had the curiosity to go to St. Anne's Church and inquire. He found the sexton in the church, as it happened, and asked him what had become of Lord Camelford. * Oh,' said the sexton, in a very cavalier way, 'here he is ' ; and showed him a thing which he afterwards described to my friend M'Leod as an enormously long fish basket, fit to pack a shark in. And this, M'Leod assured me, was seven or eight years after Camelford's death. Unfortunately, M'Leod could not tell me whether his informant paid a second visit to the church, or what took place between 1815 and 1853."

Charles Reade concludes by asking the question which forms the title of his paper, but whether he ever got a reply does not appear.

Oddly enough, I made inquiries myself quite recently on thesame subject atSt. Anne's Church, when I was assured by the authori- ties that beyond doubt Lord Camelford's remains still lie in the north vault. I was shown in the Register the entry of his burial there on 17 March, 1804 in linen, for which luxury an extra fee of 2Z. 10s. was paid. There is no entry in any book of any removal, as there certainly would be, if any such had occurred; but the "fish-basket" is not likely to be seen by mortal eye for some time to come, for burials in the church were prohibited in 1853, and the vaults were sealed up with brickwork and asphalte for sanitary reasons about thirty years ago.

ALAN STEWART.

The eccentric Thomas Pitt, second Lord Camelford, was not killed by Peterson in Switzerland, but died in Little Holland House, Kensington, whither he was moved after his fatal duel with Capt. Best. Always pugnacious, he provoked the quarrel at the Prince of Wales's Coffee-House in Conduit Street, apropos of a Mrs. Symons. The duel took place on 7 March, 1804, in that part of the grounds of Holland House which was formerly called " The Moats." Unable to be taken to his lodgings over a grocer's shop at 148. Bond Street (which he preferred to his magificent mansion Camelford House),

Lord Camelford was conveyed to Little- Holland House, close by, then the residence of Mr. Ottey, and afterwards for very many years that of Watts the painter. Here Lord' Camelford died on 10 March, aged thirty, from the result of his wounds.

His remains were deposited in a gorgeous- coffin in the vaults of St. Anne's Church, Soho, where they now are. Lord Camelford, the day before his death, wrote a codicil to- his will, in which he expressly desired to- be buried on the borders of the Lake- of Larapierre, in the Canton de Berne, between three trees which he specified : a spot on which he had passed, he said, many solitary hours contemplating the mutability of human affairs ; and he left 1,000/. as com- pensation to the owner of the land. But as he died at the time the European war was raging, his executors found it impossible then to carry out his instructions ; and when peace was declared in 1815, Lord Camelford' was still left in the vaults of St. Anne's.

Lord Holland set up an " expiatory clas- sical altar" on the spot where the duel took place, but that has been removed.

CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Lord Camelford was buried, at his own re- quest (from St. Anne's, Soho), in a secluded 1 spot near the Lake of St. Lampierre, in the canton of Berne, without "monument or stone." See 'The Complete Peerage/ ii. 125 ; also Burke's 'Romance of the Aristocracy," 1855, ii. 350 et seq. RuviGNY.

AMERICANS IN ENGLISH RECORDS.

IN working upon English records one nolr infrequently encounters references to kins- men in America which to our cousins across^ the sea, seeking perchance their familyV English habitat, would prove of no little interest. I have saved many such in the course of some years' working at original' sources, and now, with the Editor's per- mission, propose to contribute a few of them- to these pages.

STRINGER. Samuel Stringer, of "Elis- harn"CO, Surrey, Doctor in Physic, in his will, proved 26 July, 1738, mentions *'my son now in Maryland." (Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 185 Brodrepp.)

WATERS. Will of Edward Waters, of Elizabeth Cittie, in Virginia, 1630. Refers to his son William, his brother John, of Middleham, Yorks, his wife Grace, and his daughter Margaret. (P.C.C., 81 Scroope.)

WHITE. John White, vicar of Cherton, Wilts, in his will, dated 1669, mentions his
 * deceased brother's children in Virginia,"'