Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/56

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. m. j.. 21, 1911.

musket," invented and manufactured by this Baker.

The names of the two Manton brothers, John and Joseph, appear more rarely, and generally on sporting firearms, although pistols are occasionally found with the name. The biography of these two is in the ' D.N.B.,' from which it appears that " Joe Manton," in spite of his great repute, became insolvent in 1826. John Manton's shop was in Dover Street.

Joseph Egg had a shop at 1, Piccadilly, and his address is sometimes found engraved on his productions. D. Egg (whose Christian name was Durward, although I have never seen it on any of his numerous weapons) was specially noted for making pistols, but he seems also to have made a type of fowling- piece which has been recently introduced again, in which the barrels are placed vertically above each other.

Information regarding any of the names mentioned in the foregoing list will be received with interest. Please reply direct.

E. RODGEB.

Western Club, Glasgow.

SPEAKER'S CHAIR OF THE OLD

HOUSE OF COMMONS. (11 S. ii. 128, 177, 218, 331.)

MY attention has been called by Mr. E. Wilson Dobbs of this city to the articles at the first three references relative to the Speaker's Chair of the House of Commons during Sir Charles Manners-Sutton's Speaker- ship. His son, the second Viscount Canter- bury, presented to the Parliament of Victoria, of which colony he was Governor, a chair bearing the following inscription :

" The Speaker's chair : first House of Commons elected under Reform Act of 1832 Assembled January 29, 1833 ; dissolved December 30, 1834 The Right Honble. Sir Charles Manners Sutton. 0.C.B., ' Speaker ' Presented by his son, Vis : count Canterbury, G.C.M.G., and K.C.B., to the Legislative Assembly of Victoria."

The State of Victoria having lent its Parliament House to the Parliament of the Commonwealth while the latter is in Mel- bourne, the chair "is now in my charge. The chair was apparently sent from London after Lord Canterbury had retired, as appears from a letter from him to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, dated 12 June, 1873, and appearing in the Vic-

torian ' Hansard ' of 30 July, 1873, p. 892. This appears to be the same chair mentioned by MB. JOHN ROBINSON, and yet the fact of its presentation would seem to show that it never left the possession of the Manners- Sutton family. ABTHUB WADSWOBTH,

Librarian, Parliament of the

Commonwealth. Melbourne.

GAMNECOTJBT IN PICABDY : BABBABA DE BIEBLE (US. ii. 429, 512). The statement made at the latter reference by SCOTUS as to the marriage of John Erskine of Dun, the Superintendent, to a third wife, Margaret Keith, is hardly correct. There is no doubt that John Erskine married first Elizabeth Lindsay, daughter of David, fifth Earl of Crawford. She was contracted to him on 20 December, 1522, he being then under fourteen (Fifth Report Hist. MSS. Comm., 639) ; and she was his wife when she died on 29 July, 1538 (' Spalding Club Misc.,' iv. Pref. Ixvii). He married secondly Barbara de Bierle, as is proved by a charter of 20 September, 1543, granted by Sir Thomas Erskine of Kirkbuddo " nepoti meo Johanni Erskine de Dwne et Barbara de Beirle ejus conjugi." She died at Mont- rose, 15 November, 1572. John Erskine died 22 March, 1589/90 (ibid,). The ' D.N.B.' wrongly quotes the ' Spalding Club Miscellany ' as authority for the date 17 June, 1591.

By his first wife Erskine left two sons, John and Robert, and a daughter Margaret, married to Patrick Maule of Panmure with issue, inter olios, two daughters, who both married great-grandsons of the Superinten- dent. John, the latter's eldest son, died vita patris without issue ; the second son Robert married Catherine Graham, and died in 1590, leaving with other children an eldest son John, who married Agnes Ogilvy, and died the year after his father in 1591 : he left, besides two sons, David and Arthur, who married the Maule ladies above men- tioned, an eldest son John. It was he, and not his great-grandfather, who married Margaret Keith. The genealogy no doubt is somewhat confusing, owing to the fact that three lairds died in three successive years. But the succession is proved in many ways ; it is only necessary to mention here a charter of 21 October, 1588, by which Robert Erskine, fiar of Dun, with consent of John Erskine of Dun his father (the Superintendent) and John Erskine of Logie son of the former, granted certain lands to