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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. ym. JULY 26, wis.

If this Walter's wife was not Rohese de Verdon, we have the conclusion forced upon us that Lesceline de Verdon must have been a first wife of Hugh de Laci, unrecorded by the peerage compilers, and that she died without issue ; further, that his second wife,, and the only wife of Stephen de Longespee. was, as stated in ' B.E.P.' and Banks' s ' Dormant and Extinct Baronage,' Emeline, daughter of Walter de Ridelsford, alias de Reddesford, Baron of Bray.

I shall be most grateful for any information which will assist me to solve this genealogical puzzle. FRANCIS H. RELTON.

9, Broughton Road, Thornton Heath.

" TRADESMAN." It is generally known that this word has two meanings, depending upon two distinctly developed senses of " trade," which find favour in different localities. In London, and perhaps in the south-east of England generally, " trades- man '' usually means a "shopkeeper," the explanation given in Dr. Johnson's ' Dictionary,' and certainly known to Shak- .spere, whether or not he learnt it in Strat- ford-on-Avon. But in other districts " tradesman " means .a man who has a regular trade, a handicraftsman or artisan. This is often put down in dictionaries as " Scotch " ; but it is the ordinary sense, not merely in Scotland and Northern England, but also, according to the ' English Dialect Dictionary,' over a great part of the Midlands, in Cheshire, Notts, Warwick- shire, Oxfordshire, as well as in the south- west from Hampshire to West Somerset, and in the Isle of Wight. Outside England, this is recorded also as the usage in Australia and the W^est Indies, and (I am told) in Canada, and in Greater Britain generally. This seems to leave rather a limited area for the London or shopkeeper sense.

In order to have the limits of this more exactly defined than is done in the ' Dialect Dictionary,' may I ask every reader o ' N. & Q.' to send me a post-card (addressed Sir James Murray, Oxford) stating in what sense or senses " tradesman " is used in towns ; villages, or districts known to them ? I suspect that the London sense will be found to prevail in towns, even in districts where the more widely diffused sense is retained in the country. This I know to be the case in Oxford, as distinct from rural Oxfordshire. A servant from a parish not ten miles from Oxford, when asked what a tradesman is, at once replied, " A carpenter,

or mason, or plumber, or thatcher " ; and a country clergyman still nearer the town, who had some building going on, was " told that a mason, stone-setter, or bricklayer is a tradesman, and the man who serves him a labourer." We may also remember that a trade union or trade's union is primarily a union of skilled artisans, not of shop- keepers. And, by the way, too much stress must not be laid upon the inscription " Tradesmen's entrance " on doors and gates ; for this admits plumbers, gasfitters, plasterers, and carpenters, as well as grocers' boys or dairymen, and may belong to an original comprehensive sense of " tradesman."

Please send post-cards at once. I will publish the results.

J. A. H. MURRAY.

Oxford.

1. MORRIS. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.* tell me anything of the family of William Morris, a master in the Royal Navy, born 1749 at Bermondsey, who married Anne Hart the parents of Admiral George Morris, who died in 1857 ? Any notes on the naval career of the latter would be Welcome.

2. PAWLETT : SMITH. Is anything known

of the family of the Rev. Smith, who

married Annabella, daughter of Wm. Paw- let t, M.P. for Lymington in 1729, and Win- chester in 1741 ? X, Y. Z.

FINGER BOARD. In the churchwardens' accounts of Ecclestoii, in Leyland Hun- dred, Lancashire, for the year 1723, occur the following items : Paid to Jas. Balshaw for making a new finger

board for within the church. Paid to Hugh Worsley for making a finger board

and pannel, and helping to fix him up 3s. 2d.

Spent at that time upon the workmen and some

others that helped him up with the finger

board ! 1^.

Paid to Geo. Wright for painting and gilding the

finger board within and without, and for gold

and writing ll.2s.Gd.

What is the meaning of the term " finger board " ? The cost of that made by Balshaw is not separately given, it being lumped with several other items. Hugh Worsley, who made a finger board in 1723, had mended the " finger of the clock " in 1717, and he " mended the clock " again in 1719. Balshaw's " finger board " ifl specially referred to as " within the church," and Geo. Wright painted and