Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/198

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. in. MAR. n, 1911.

public. Doubtless he had improved his methods by a study of Chappe's plans ; possibly, too, he was one of the rival claim- ants who drove Chappe to suicide. After the Irish Rebellion (1798) Mr. Edgeworth persuaded the Government to lay down a line from Dublin to Galway ; but, according as the fear of invasion declined, the matter was dropped. Edgeworth died 1817. His daughter, Maria, in her letters, mentions how, on their visit to Paris, 1802, they took lodgings near the central telegraph office, so that her father might closely study the means and methods employed. He was a man of varied talents and many clever " notions " ; velocipedes, drainage, road- measuring machines, &c., and, as ' Harms- worth's Ency.' says : " claimed to have invented the electric telegraph as now used." Yet, were it not for his famous daughter, his name might, perchance, be now entirely forgotten.

HEBBEBT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

HOLWELL FAMILY (11 S. ii. 528 ; iii. 74, 111). The following short extract from The Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1788, may interest COL. PBIDEAUX :

''Died, Capt. Pigott of Compton Chamberlain, Wilts : one of the 23 persons who providentially escaped the fate of their fellow prisoners suffocated in the Black Hole of Calcutta in 1756 of whom except Gov. Holwell he has not we believe left a survivor."

According to Burke' s * Gentry,' Thomas Walcot, a younger brother to Edward and Bowes Walcot, was a captain in the 12th Regiment, of which John Pigott became captain in 1778.

In Holwell's account of the Black Hole the only names mentioned are " Court Secretary Cook, Lushington, Burdet, Ensign Walcot, Mrs. Carey, Capt. Dickson, Mr Moran and John Meadows and 12 Military and Military [sic] Blacks and Whites some o: whom recovered when the door was opened,' and John Pigott may have been among the latter.

There certainly was a John Pigott who joined as ensign or lieutenant the 39th, in 1750, and this regiment went out to India in 1754, and it is quite possible that some o the officers may have been taken prisoner: when Fort William was captured in 1756.

As far as I have been able to ascertain John Pigott resided during his boyish days a Ballymonty, co. Tipperary; and Frances the younger of his two sisters, married a Clonmel, ~9 July, 1757, Richard Po\\er afterwards second Baron of the Excheque

n Ireland, younger brother of John Power f Tullamin Castle, co. Tipperary, A.D.C. o General Clive at the battle of Plassey, 757. Was this Po\ver also an officer in the 9th Regiment ? He was the ancestor of the >aronets.

It seems that many of those who escaped ut of the Black Hole prison were Irish. We vant a complete annotated list of the 3 survivors, and it is to be hoped that the many correspondents of ' N. & Q.' will be able in time to supply this deficiency.

WM. JACKSON TIGOTT.

Has COL. PBIDEAUX seen the pamphlet by Mr. S. C. Hill containing a list of all the Europeans in the English factories in Bengal n June, 1756 ? Beside J. Z. Holwell there was possibly a Richard Holwell, but Mr. ilill is not certain. There was no Bowes Walcot ; only Edward. I think Mr. Hill's nvestigatioii is the latest.

FBANK PENNY.

Mr. Phillimore mentions that the arms of Holwell are marshalled by the family of Money-Kyrle. R. J. FYNMOBE.

KNOTS IN HANDKEBCHIEFS : INDIAN CUSTOM (11 S. ii. 506; iii. 35, 97). I pre- sume the " knotting " was to assist memory. If so, many very pious Hebrews abroad and in this country practise it. In this way, "nefas est," to carry anything on the Sabbath (otherwise than subconsciously of course, like one's clothing, for example), such as an umbrella : so handkerchiefs or

bandannas" are converted into girdles, the loose ends of which would come in handy for " knotting " into " memory-reminders." I have seen pious scholars do it in order to remind them to look up some " knotty " point. M. L. R. BBESLAB.

WILLIAM ELMHAM (11 S. iii. 87). It appears from Blomefield's * History of Norfolk,' passim, that Sir William Elmham, knight, justice of peace for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, was the son of Henry Elmham of Elmham and Frenge, Norfolk, and Elizabeth his wife, that he was patron of the rectories of Bowthorpe and Coltishall, both in Norfolk, and lord of the manors of Ingoldsthorpe and Frenge, Norfolk, and of the Manor of Westhorpe, Suffolk ; that his town house in Norwich was afterwards known as Skipwith's Place from its owner in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. ; that he took part with Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, in the campaign against the adherents of the Anti-Pope Clement VII.,