Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/221

 n s. i. MAR. 12, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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JOHN DYER (10 S. xii. 428, 498). As information is asked for respecting John Dyer the poet, I may mention that one of his daughters married the Rev. John Gaunt. His death is given in Gent. Mag. for 1797, pt. i. 356.

Dyer's youngest and last surviving daughter was the wife of John Hewitt. Her death at Coventry in 1830 is entered in the above periodical for May, 1830, p. 478.

W. P. COURTNEY.

CAPT. BROOKE AND SIR JAMES BROOKE (11 S. i. 130). At 2 S. iii. 12, 58 (1857), are references to Rajah Brooke's pedigree, including the following extract from ' The Expedition to Borneo of H.M. Ship Dido, 1 &c., by Capt. Hon. Henry Keppel, R.N. (Chapman & Hall, 1846) :

" Mr. Brooke is the lineal representative of Sir Robert Vyner, Bart., Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Charles II. ; Sir Robert had but one child, a son, Sir George Vyner, who died childless, and his estate passed to his heir-at-law, Edith, the eldest siste'r of his father, whose lineal descend- ant is our friend." Vol. i. p. 2.

It was the marriage (circa 1729) of Eliza- beth Collet to Capt. Robert Brooke that formed the Brooke connexion with the Viners. A Sir James Collet was Sheriff of London about 1690. An Isaac Collet, who died in April, 1751, was a silk merchant. Robert Brooke of Goodmanfields stated by Miss Jacob to have been father of Capt. Robert Brooke was probably identical with a Robert who was apprenticed to Thomas Godfree, and entered the Mercers 1 Company in 1698.

The ancestry of these Roberts has not been traced. In point of age the older of them was contemporary with the Rev. William Brooke of Rantavan, co. Cavan (b. 1669), who is traditionally held to have been of Cheshire descent. If there be a common ancestor for the two families, as MR. MUIR by reference to their character implies, he must be sought for as an antecedent to the last named. It is suggestive that in a pedigree of the Brookes of Astley, a branch of the Norton (Cheshire) family (see Genealo- gist, April, 1897, vol. xiii. p. 225), a Robert Brooke is mentioned who was living in 1727, but of whom there is no later trace. This Robert was the second son of Richard Brooke, who married at Leyland, co. Lane., 6 Feb., 1665/6, Margaret, the daughter and heiress of Robert Charnock of Chainock and Astley, co. Lane. His elder brother in- herited Astley. His younger brothers were Thomas and William, who settled in London. Thomas married Margaret, daughter of

Capt. Thomas Wharton, a mariner and Virginia (tobacco) merchant. William was a woollen draper of Lombard Street, and in his will, dated 23 May, 1727 (proved P.C.C. 22 Feb., 1727/8), he mentions his brother Robert and wife Elizabeth. In respect of date, locality, and social position these details are strongly in favour of the identi- fication of Robert of Goodmanfields with the second son of Richard Brooke, who was a grandson of Thomas of Norton Priory, Cheshire.

The son of Capt. Robert Brooke and Elizabeth Collet was another Capt. Robert, who was commander of the Earl of Holder- ness, East Indiaman. He married at Wan- stead, 24 Sept., 1760, Miss Pattle, daughter of Thomas Pattle, Esq., of Guildhall. His son was Thomas Brooke (b. 1761), in the Hon. E.I. Co. ? s Bengal Civil Service, whose second son, James, became Rajah Brooke.

As reference has been made to the Rev. William Brooke of Rantavan, it may be stated here that he appears to have had three sons by his wife Lettice Digby, viz., Digby, Henry (the author of ' The Fool of Quality *), and Robert. A son of the latter was also named Robert, He was a colonel in the E.I. Co.'s service, and was Governor of St. Helena, 1788-1800.

J. N. DOWLING.

48, Gough Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.

See also Gertrude L. Jacob's ' Raja of Sarawak, 1 1876 ; and Spenser St. John's 1 Life of Sir James Brooke, 1 1879.

A. R. BAYLEY.

COSNAHAN FAMILY, ISLE OF MAN (11 S. i. 109). I doubt if SIGMA TAU will find any published work containing the pedigree of the Cosnahan family. But (1) in the Santon (I.O.M.) Churchyard, where several of the Cosnahans are buried, there is a tomb- stone or tombstones with the names of several members of the family thereon. (2) Search in the Manx Probate Registry for the wills of the Cosnahans would probably help. (3) Search in the Manx Registry Office for Deeds into the title to Ballakew, Malew, I.O.M., at one time owned by the Cosnahans, would also probably help.

BARRULE.

' MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE * (11 S. i. 141). By way of supplement it may be recorded as noteworthy that of the thirty-one contri- butors to the first volume of Macmillan, November, 1859, to April, 1860 and in the number for January, 1860, Tennyson's 'Sea- Dreams : an Idyll l appeared two are