Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/435

 ii s. XL JUNE 5, 1915 ] NOTES AND QUERIES.

425

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1915.

CONTENTS. No. 284.

NOTES : Sir Richard Burton's Archdeacon, 425 A College Hall-book of 1401-2, 426 Statues and Memorials in the British Isles, 428 " Curmudgeon " " Children to bed and the goose to the fire " " Cock ": "Cockboat" Leather and Algebra : William Gifford, 429.

QUERIES : Gay : Request for Letters Floating Ironclad Batteries" Heraldry Pole " " Sacramentum "Corpus Christi in England : Post-ReformationAuthors of Quo- tations Wanted, 430 Sheridan Knowles a Graduate of Aberdeen Joseph Copley Biographical Information Wanted Spon : Spoon, 431 John Stuart, Edinburgh- Mexican Family Rev. George Nicholson Mrs Bulkeley Miss Nossiier, 432 Baron Adam Friedel BirgitRooke, Ninth Abbess of Syon George Offley 'The Chimney- Sweep's Chorus' Courage, the Brewer, 433 Field or Feld of Yorkshire The Seven Seas, 434.

REPLIES : De Gorges, 434 Hangleton : Prsvry - Perse- vere ye, 435 Cromwell's Ironsides History of England with Riming Verses The Custody of Ecclesiastical Ar- chivesHebrew Medal with Alleged Portrait of our Lord Lady Chapel. 436 Terrace in Piccadilly Clyst Allen Puleston Jew King, 437 Medicinal Mummies Napoleon and the Bellerophon, 438 Flag of the Knights of Malta German Soldiers' Amulets, 439 Pack-horses A Russian Easter, 440 Myriorama Cream-Coloured Horses Our National Anthem : Standard Version, 441 Ludgate or Grafton Picture of Shakespeare " Sock " Dupuis, Violinist True Blue, 442 Oxfordshire Landed Gentry "The tune the old cow died of" Chantries Hemborow, 443.

NOTES ON BOOK : ' The Development of Arabic Nu- merals in Europe ' Herrick's Poems Reviews and Maga-

Notices to Correspondents.

SIB BICHABD BURTON'S ABCHDEACON.

THE obvious incongruity in the Mecca Pil- grim, Capt. Sir Bichard Burton, having an archdeacon for a grandfather has so con- founded his biographers that they have left the Archdeacon severely alone, contenting themselves with giving him a wrong Christian name, a wrong title, and an imaginary estate. A series of sixteen of the grandfather's unpublished letters, however, have come into the possession of Mr. E. Williams of Hove, whose name is familiar to readers of ' N. & Q.,' and he has kindly permitted me to deduce from them such information as can be gleaned. They are addressed by the Archdeacon to his brother-in-law, Robert Baxter of Furniva.rs Inn, ancestor of the well-known firm of parliamentary solicitors of Westminster, or to members

of that family, and range from 1763 to 1783. The first three were written at Bushden, Northamptonshire, where, it may be presumed, Edmund Burton was curate ; the rest, from 1773, are from Tuam, in co. Galway, where he was archdeacon, except the last, which is dated from Dublin. The first letter, 4 July, 1763, announces the writer's marriage, a few days before, at Mancetter, to " my dear Mrs. Catherine," and their arrival at Bushden. Burke's ' Visitations of Arms,' i. 31, consulted for me at the Bodleian, by a friend who is also a devout student of ' N. & Q.,' reveals that Mrs. Burton was Catherine, daughter of Michael Baxter, of Atherstone, Warwickshire, close to Mancetter, and not far from Nun- eaton, where lived the Byder family; Michael Baxter's wife Catherine being sister to John Byder, Archbishop of Tuam. Bobert Baxter of Furnival's Inn was a son of Michael.

The Archbishop obtained various ecclesi- astical appointments for his relations : his son John was Prebendary of Tuam and then Dean of Lismore ; his daughter Elizabeth's husband, John Oliver, became Archdeacon of Ardagh, a see held in commendam with the Archbishopric ; and naturally his niece Gather ne's husband, Edmund Burton, was appointed Archdeacon of Tuam, as well as vicar not " rector," as in the biographies of Sir B. Burton, for the living was impro- priate. Burton also obtained the post of agent for the archiepiscopal rents and takings, and he and his wife lived in the " See House," or Palace, since the Arch- bishop was rarely in residence and there was then no vicarage or " Glebe House." He describes himself in his first letter from Tuam, 5 Feb., 1773, as " f ac totum in this diocese," and as it was the largest diocese in Ireland, drawing 8,0001. or 9,0001. a year from 86,000 acres of church land, he had doubtless plenty to do. On Byder's death, 4 Feb., 1775, at Nice, where he was buried " the Vice-Consul walked before, and he was attended by ten coaches and about thirty English gentlemen," Burton mentions, but this did not pr<. serve the grave from being washed into the sea the new Archbishop, Dr. Browne, an Irishman of 74 years, renewed his predecessor's arrangements, and the Archdeacon continued to live in the Palace and enjoy the agency till 1782, when, on Dr. Browne's death, he removed into a house which he had built for himself, and which was doubtless the foundation for the " estate " in co. Galway imagined by the biographers of his grandson.