Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/280

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. i. AP*. 2, 1910.

The Register of Wakefield Grammar School is reprinted at the end of the history of the school written by me in 1892.

MATTHEW H. PEACOCK, Head Master.

The registers of York have not yet been printed, but, according to a recent note in the school magazine, they are in an advanced stage of preparation, and will be published soon as the ' ' Records and Registers of St. Peter's School, York, 668 to 1910, by an O.P." CLASSICUS.

[Replies from G. F. R. B. and MR. McMuRRAY next week. Several contributors mentioned the same works, but these have been omitted unless supplying additional information.]

SPEAKER PELHAM (11 S. i. 227). Henry Pelham was third son of Sir William Pelham of Brocklesby and Newstead, co. Lincoln, Kt., by Anne, dau. of Charles, 2nd Lord Willoughby of Parham. He was born about 1595, and admitted to Gray's Inn 6 -Nov., 1616. He had a somewhat lengthy Parlia- mentary course, being M.P. for Grimsby in 1621-2, 1624-5, 1626, 1628-9, and for Grantham in both the Short and Long Parlia- ments of 1640 until secluded in 1648. He is stated to have been a person distinguished for his eminent abilities, yet, although so long in Parliament, seems not to have been a very conspicuous member until brought into prominence towards the close of his political career.

In the Long Parliament he was of the popular party, but voted with the moderates. He took the Protestation in May, 1641 ; was a manager on the Trial of Judge Berkeley in May, 1642 ; appointed by Parliament D.L. co. Lincoln, 1 July, 1644 ; added, 3 July, 1644, to the Lincolnshire Sequestration, Committee, and in February, 1645, was on the New Model Committee for the same county. He was appointed a Commissioner of the Admiralty 28 April, 1645.

In the general proceedings of the House he was fairly active in Committee work, though he is not named as serving on many of the more important Committees. In the dispute between the House and the Army in the summer of 1647 he strongly supported the former ; and when, at the instance of the army officers, the eleven leading Presby- terian members were suspended and Speaker Lenthall and others left the House in conse- quence of the tumult at Westminster. Mr. Pelham was, by the Presbyterian section who remained, on 30 July elected Speaker pro tern. His occupancy of the

chair was, however, brief, for on 6 August the Army enforced the return of Lenthall. All the proceedings and votes of the House between 26 July and 6 August were after- wards rescinded, so that, Mr. Pelham's appointment being annulled, he is never included in the lists of Speakers.

As one of the leading Presbyterians in the House he was secluded and imprisoned in Pride's Purge, 6 Dec., 1648, being liberated six days later. With this his political career ended. How long he lived afterwards I have not discovered. He held the office of Recorder of Lincoln, which he is stated to have resigned in 1658 ; but I have found no mention of him so late. His will does not appear in the Calendar of Lincoln Wills. He was seemingly the " Henry Pelham of Brocklesby " who married Elizabeth, 3rd dau. of Sir Thomas Pelham, 2nd Baronet, of Laughton, Sussex. W. D. PINK.

Lowton, Newton -le- Willows.

" oo " : HOW PRONOUNCED (11 S. i. 10, 58, 176). Really, I must ask to be excused. I cannot answer STUDENT'S sweeping ques- tions briefly. Nor do I think the books to which I referred at p. 58 have as yet been seriously consulted. The reason "why o became u rather than another sound " is clearly given at p. 51 of my ' Primer of English Etymology. 1 It accompanied the shifting of a to open 6, and of open o to close o. What else could have happened ? And all these changes were made very gradually, through almost infinite small variations during many centuries, so that the exact dating of any given sound becomes very difficult. But there were no doubt certain times when changes were greater than others. The Wars of the Roses, the inven- tion of printing, the ascendancy of the Mid- land dialect, the cessation of the use of Southern English in literary productions, the stirring times of the Reformation, the foolish respelling of words by the conceited pedants of the Renaissance period, the Civil War, and other like events all helped. I have already explained the sounds of a in name and of i in bite in my book. WALTER W. SKEAT.

Perhaps the best account of the develop- ment of the O.E. long vowels is that given by Jespersen in his ' Modern English Gram- mar ' (Part L, Heidelberg, 1909). The facts are set forth along with the theories under the general heading ' The Great Vowel-Shift.' The change began with one of the vowels, whereupon the rest followed suit. Jespersen's own view is that the high vowels i and u were the first to change.