Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/234

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. SEPT. 20, 1913.

teapots, and later he distilled coal in an iron kettle, led the product by a pipe through a window, fixed on the pipe a thimble with a few holes in it, and produced a star-light. He offered the result to his firm, but they for some reason or other refused it.

This caused Murdoch to resign his posi- tion, and he removed to Old Cumnock in 1797, and started a foundry there and lit it with gas. This was the first practical gas lighting installed in Scotland. He was offered 500Z. a year by mineowners in Corn- wall as chief engineer. He declined it, and his old firm of Bolton & Watt in 1800, now evidently realizing the worth of their late employee, offered him a thousand pounds a year if he would become their manager. This he accepted, ultimately becoming a partner. He retired in 1830. Bolton died in 1809, Watt in 1819, and Murdoch in 1839. Murdoch was buried in Handsworth Churchyard, Birmingham, beside Bolton and Watt.

On the 26th of July the North British Association of Gas Managers placed in the front part of the old house in which Murdoch was born a panel to his memory, with a* medallion of him bearing the inscrip- tion :

William Murdoch, inventor of lighting by gas,

1754-1839.

l< This incomparable Mechanic " (Nasmyth).

Erected by the North British Association of Gas

Managers, 1913.

One of the speakers at the gathering said :

" They that day anew committed and com- mended the name, and fame, of William Murdoch to the consideration and justice of the British Nation, that it might erect and inscribe a suitable monument to his memory, expressing the Nation's gratitude for a National service." This will surely be endorsed by all who have benefited by Murdoch's invention.

I am indebted to the report of the Society's meeting for many of my facts.

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS.

JUSTINIAN LEWYN. 1. ' Dictionary of National Biography.' In the account given in the ' D.N.B.' of Sir Justinian Lewyn, D.C.L. (1613-73), son of Wm. Lewyn of Smithfield, and nephew of Sir Justinian Lewyn of Otteringdon, Kent, no mention is made of his marriage.

His wife was Mary, daughter of Rice Gwynn of Fakenham, Norfolk (only son of Rice Gwynn, Serjeant-at-law, of Fakenham, Recorder of Norwich and Great Yarmouth). They were married in the parish church of Snoring Parva, near Fakenham, on 21 Aug., 1634 : Rice Gwynn was lord of the manor of

Snoring. There was issue of the marriage, and the eldest son (John Lewyn) was living in 1675.

2. Anthony Wood's ' Fasti.' In Anthony Wood's ' Fasti,' pt. i. col. 321, there is a foot-note, wherein it is stated that Justinian Lewyn, LL.D., married the "daughter and heir " of " Rhees Wynn, Serjeant-at-law."

This is incorrect, as Mary Gwynn was the grand daughter of Serjeant Rice Gwynn of Fakenham, and coheir (with her brother Rice) of her uncle Dr. Thomas Gwynn, D.C.L., who died at Fakenham in 1645.

J. Lewyn was not LL.D., but B.C.L. (1632) and D.C.L. (1637). CECIL GWYN.

JOSEPH LEMUEL CHESTER'S ' WESTMIN- STER ABBEY REGISTERS.' In a note about ' John Broughton, Pugilist ' (US. vii. 424 ) r URLLAD writes of " ' The Westminster Abbey Registers,' edited by Joseph Lemuel Chester for the Harleian Society (1876)." This is not, I think, quite correct.

In * The Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster,' edited and anno- tated by Joseph Lemuel Chester (Private Edition), London, 1876, p. xiii, is the follow- ing note :

" It is proper to state that the Editor allowed the Harleian Society, of which he was one of the Founders, to print an edition of this volume- exclusively for its Members, and it thus forms the tenth volume of the series issued by that Society, being the one for the year 1875." It would appear that, strictly speaking, Chester did not edit the book " f or " the Harleian Society.

I cite the full title, although ' Westminster Abbey Registers ' appears on the false title- page and on the cloth cover.

The latter gives 1875, although the title- page gives 1876 ; and the Preface is dated 30 April, 1876. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

' LAST LINKS WITH BYRON, SHELLEY, AND KEATS.' Since I called attention to this book (see 11 S. ii. 108), I have been told that the history it professes to re- late is a fabrication. If this be so, it is no wonder that the promise of additional particulars after the publication of the Hobhouse memoirs should not have been fulfilled. But it is matter for wonder that such circumstantial statements should have been invented. C. K. S. in The Spherz of 15 June, 1912, speaks of the book as one "which is only fit for the dust-heap and has no biographical value whatever."

E. L. H. TEW.

Upham Rectory, Hants.