Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/223

 10 s. vm. SEPT. 7, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

181

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1907.

CONTENTS. No. 193.

UOTES : " Pot- Waller " : " Pot-Walloper," 181 Allan Ramsay : Horse-Racing at Leith, 182 Dodsley's Famous Collection of Poetry, 183 Southwark Canons Yorkshire Memorial Sacrifice, 185" Pittance "Moon and Crabs -" Waeg-sweord" in ' Beowulf " Tear 'em," 186 "Damage " : " Figure " : " Figure it out "George Cruik- shank " Inmatecy " H. C. Watson on Phrenology, 187.

QUERIES : Pontifex Family Washington and Jonathan Boucher Krapina ' Rule, Britannia ' : Variant Reading 'Old Tarl ton's Song 'Scotch Song : Night Courtship, 188" Quattrocento " Gascoigne the Poet Plaistow and William Allen Gambler Detected Harrison Ainsworth and Thomas Darrell Genealogical Queries " Rapids ": " Water-break "French Emigre's, 189 Russian Painting Tyrrell Family First English Jesuit John Cotton of Boston The Irish Parliament Secret Languages Latta Surname Meyerbeer Scholarships " Suck-bottle " : " Feedhig-bottle " Rev. John Gordon and the 'New Statistical Account of Scotland 'Col. Hutchinson and Sandown Castle, Kent, 190.

TRRPLIES : The Earliest Cricket Report, 191 George I. : The Nightingale and Death, 192 The Thames Embank- ment. 193 Moravian Chapel, Fetter Lane, 194 Shrews- bury Clock : "Point of war" Pie: Tart, 195 Greensted Church, Ongar: Oak v. Chestnut " Local Option," 196 Keble's ' Christian Year ' " Eie sores " Harriet Lee "Palates" Seal Inscriptions, 197.

!NOTES ON BOOKS : Macaulay's 'History of England' ' Dublin : a Historical and Topographical Account of the City.'

Magazines and Reviews.

Booksellers' Catalogues.

^Notices to Correspondents.

' POT-WALLER " : " POT- WALLOPER."

IN the attempts to explain pot-walloper -which I have seen it has usually been assumed that this is a genuine word, ety- mologically formed from pot and wallop, the latter being assumed to be a derivative or compound of some sort of the vb. wall, O.E. wallan, weallan, to boil. This appears to be a mistaken view. The only genuine term found in the Journals of the House of Commons, and in legal writers and constitu- tional historians, is pot-waller. Thus in the Commons' Journal of 28 May, 1701, p. 583, in reference to Honyton, it was found " that the Right of Election was agreed to be in the pot- wallers not receiving Alms." And in the Journal of 1710, vol. xvi. p. 479, col. 2, it was stated that " at an Election [for Taunton], 40 Years ago, the Pot-wallers were refused, and none but Scot and Lot Men voted then." But, in reply to this, '" copies of Returns to Parliament in the Years 1661, 1679, 1680, 1688, and 1705, -were produced ; and it was proved that several of the Persons who signed these Returns were Pot-wallers." So in the Journal of date 30 Aug., 1715 (Taunton) ; and in Act 26 Geo. III. c. 100, 1, "An inhabitant householder, housekeeper, and

pot-waller legally settled." So in Beatson's ' Parly. Regr.,' iii. 276 (of Honiton) and 311 (of Taunton), and in J. Savage, ' Manual for Electors of Taunton,' 18 :

"To be a Pot- waller or Pot-boiler, or to boil a Pot, was only another mode of expressing that [the voter] was a man so far independent of other persons as to be visibly able to maintain himself and family by his own labour and industry."

See also Roscoe, ' Report Munic. Corpor* Commiss.' (1835), i. 649 (Tregoney), "Settle- ment in the parish, and residence as a pot- waller constitute a Burgess." So Fitzj. Stephen, ' Comm. Laws of Engl.' (1874), ii. 360; Bagehot, ' Unref. Parlt.' (1860), 7; Besant, 'Westminster' (1895), ch. ix. 256, " the voting qualification was. . . .the tenant who paid scot and lot, and the pot-waller." Pot-waller is, of course, a simple combination of pot + waller, the regular agent-noun of wall, to boil. A much earlier example of a cognate form is to be found in pot-walling, pot-boiling, in the ' Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin,' i. 291, of date 1456 : " A sertificat [of] continuall residence and abydyrig and pot wallyng wythyn any of the cytteys or townys."

But the correct and official pot-waller has undergone various corruptions and perver- sions. Thus we find pot-walloner or -walliner, pot-wallader, pot-walloper, and pot-wobbler. The first of these, pot-walloner, occurs in De Foe, &c., ' Tour of Great Britain', first ed., 1725, vol. ii. 21 :

" This Town [Taunton] chooses two Members of Parliament, and their way of choosing is by those who they call Pot-Walloners."

So in edd. 1742 and 1753 ; but ed. 1769 alters this to " Pot- Wallopers." Whether " Pot- Walloper " was a misprint for the " Pot-Walloner " of the original edition, or " Pot-Walloner " was itself a misprint or error, which the printer of ed. 1769 took upon him to correct, seems impossible to determine ; neither form is etymologically admissible. But " Pot- walloper " was in- serted, no doubt from this, by Grose in his ' Diet, of the Vulgar Tongue,' 1785, and its second edition, 1796 ; and, although the ' English Gazetteer ' of 1778, s.v. Taunton, retained pot-walloner ("The election of members of parliament here is very singular ; every pot-walloner, i.e., that dresses his own victuals, is entitled to vote "), the influence of Grose apparently made pot- walloper the form generally familiar to people at a distance, and it was that which became current in the newspapers during the dis- cussion of the Reform Bill of 1832. But it was apparently not in local use ; the local