Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/171

 us. XL FEB. 27, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

161

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1915.

CONTENTS. No. 270.

NOTES : The Smith Family of Combe Hay, Somerset, 161 'The Happy Warrior' and Nel>oa, 162-Holcroft Biblio- graphy, 164 ' The Marseillaise, 1 165 De Quincey on "Time for direct intellectual culture "Cardinal Bourne with the British Army in France Demolition of 56, Great Queen Street, 166 Senrab Street The French Flag and the Trinitarian Order, 167.

QUERIES : Stars in Lists of India Stockholders Pronun- ciation of "Chopin" Solomon's Advice to his Son Massacre of Sr. Bartholomew South Carolina before 1776 Authors Wanted Pidgeon Epitaph, 168 Shewell- Edward Burton Bibliography Old K.tonHns D'Oyley's Warehouse. K9 Polhill- John Rede, 1557 Lion with Rose W. J. St ruth Author of Hjmns Wanted Sir R. IMccell : Sir R. Houghton, 170 Knights Templars W. Robinson-Silver Cabstand Vision of the World- WarHeraldry without Tinctures Lamoureux Hon. and Rev. W. Shirley, 171.

REPLIES: Browne and Angell Families, 172 Harrison= G reen _Elizabeth Cobbold Latin Monumental Inscrip- tions Woodhouse, Poet, 173 Authors of Quotations Wanted Cat echist at Christ Church " Gazing-room" 'Comic Latin Grammar' Old Westminsters " Roper's news _Col. the Hon. Cosmo Gordon, 174 Names of Novels Wanted De la Cn ze, Historian Order of Merit " Cole " : " Coole " Renton N icholson Mercers' Chapel Extraordinary Births, 175- Rev. Lewis Way Kay and K e y_Farthing Staicps, 176 Luke Robinson Fiance and England Quarterly Punctuation : its Importance, 177 Rolls of Honour" Wangle " " Jacob Larwood," 178.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society ' ' Men of Genius influenced by Swedenborg ' ' Albrecht Ritschl and his School ' ' Fleetwood Family Records ' Book-Prices Current.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

THE SMITH FAMILY OF COMBE HAY, SOMERSET.

A BATH newspaper cutting, dated 6 Aug., 1813, records the death

Esq., of Combhay, Provincial Grand Master of the Lodges of Freemasons in this County, and formerly lieut.-col. of the 1st reg. Somerset militia. . . . Invaluable in his station as a Country Gentleman, and long and universally beloved and respected in this city and its neighbourhood, the death of Mr. Leigh will make a void in society which will neither be speedily forgotten nor replaced."
 * ' on Sunday last, aged 53, of John Smith Leigh,

In the hope of being able, through the kindness of some of your readers, to fill up following particulars are annexed.
 * \> missing link in the Smith pedigree, the

Bobert Smith of Frome Selwood bought the manor of Foxcote, near Bath, from Hum- phrey Orange about the year 1690 (Collinson, added, ten years later, the adjoining estate of Stony Littleton, in Wellow parish, by purchase from the trustees of Henry Bayntun of Spye Park (conveyance dated 1 July, 1700).
 * Hist, of Somerset,' iii. 350), to which he

He built a " mansion " at Littleton, which, after occupation by his descendants for nearly a century, was subsequently tenanted by a farmer, and now no longer exists. No local record relates how or when it was destroyed, but its site is quite evident from an estate-map of the year 1820, and the form of some terraces south-west of the house is still to be traced in the adjoining meadow. Bobert Smith married Dorothy, daughter of John Champneys of Orchardleigh, near Frome, "a woman of very close penurious Temper, a very strict Presbyterian " (Diary of Thos. Smith of Shaw, Wiltshire Archccol. Coll., vol. xi.). They were both buried at Foxcote (M.I. in that church). Their second son, John Smith I., married Arm, daughter of Thos. Bennett of Steeple Ashton (marr. sett, dated 20 Nov., 1713), and the Littleton estate was entailed on them and their issue. Did the manor of Foxcote pass to the elder son of Bobert I. and Dorothy ?

John Smith I. by his first wife, Ann Bennett, had an only daughter Ann, who married a first cousin, John Smith II., who on her early death, in 1751, aged 22, became the owner of Littleton, marrying secondly, in 1767, Catherine Houston, but dying the following year, having had no children by either of his wives ; and by his will, proved 11 March, 1768, Littleton^ de- volved on his nephew, John Smith III. of Combe Hay, M.P. for Bath, who only enjoyed the Littleton property for seven years, dying in 1775, and being succeeded by his^son John Smith IV., then a minor, who came of age in 1780, and in 1802 assumed by Boyal licence the name of Leigh the estimable gentleman referred to in the Bath obituary notice.

With Col. Leigh's widow ended the con- nexion of the family with the neighbourhood. He had sold Foxcote in the year 1786 to Sir John Henry Smyth of Ashton Court, Bristol (who, there is reason to believe, was a distant kinsman) ; Littleton was disposed of under the directions of the Colonel's will within a few years of his decease ; and his favourite residence of Combe Hay also passed to strangers.

The question is, what was Col. Leigh's exact descent from the Bobert Smith who bought Foxcote in 1690 ? It is perfectly clear that he was the eldest " son of John Smith [III.] and the Honourable Ann his wife," for he was baptized as such at Combe Hay, 23 July, 1759 ; whilst John Smith III. appears to have been the eldest son of " Bobert Smith. Esq., LL.D.," since a tablet in Combe Hay Church calls him Bobert's