Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/183

 ii s. iv. A. 26, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

177

THE KING'S TURNSPITS (11 S. iv. 107). The information desired as to the various departments in the King's household, with the names and salaries and wages of the officers and servants, will be found in John Stockdale's ' London Calendar and Court and City Register.' I have before me the issues for 1788 and 1803. Of turnbroches there were five, who were classed with the doorkeeper and soil carriers at a wage of 251. The term broche was new to me, but on referring to Brachet's ' Etym. French Diet.' I found it meant a spit, and going a step further in Cassell's ' French-English Diet.' I lit upon tournebroche, a turnspit, applied to men or dogs. In ' A Noble Boke of Cookry for a Prince Houssolde,' about 400 years old, reprint by Elliot Stock, 1882, the word " broche" = a spit; so I may venture to state that it is a Norman or Anglo-French word and probably had been used in the roy al kitchens for centuries.

The use of this term in Parliamentary debate was probably a bitter sarcasm against placemen, or, as we say, one who has all the work but none of the profit, or he turns the spit but gets none of the meat.

Since writing the above jottings I have read in The Athenceum (19 August) an interesting review of Mr. Round's * The King's Serjeants and Officers of State, with their Coronation Services.' Mav I quote a couple of sentences ?

" Members of the mighty Norman houses of Bigod and of Giffard held, in succession, an Essex manor by the service of scalding the King's swine."

"From Lord Great Chamberlain down to the Kmg's Sauser, and even turnspits (there was a turnspit serjeanty with a recognized caput in Essex)."

G. SYMES SAUNDERS, M.D. 5, Burlington Place, Eastbourne.

REV. PHOCION HENLEY (US. iv. 129). Phocion Henley, a nephew of Lord Chancellor Henley, was born in 1728 at Wooton Abbots, Wiltshire ; matriculated at Oxford (Wad- ham College), on 7 May, 1746. Presented to the Rectory of St. Andrew, Wardrobe, and St. Ann, Blackfriars, London, in 1759, where he continued to labour until stricken with a fever caught from a sick parishioner, and died on 29 August, 1764. Whilst at Oxford he diligently studied music with his friend William Jones, who is known as the curate of Nayland, Suffolk, and author of several esteemed treatises on music. Henley composed ' The Cure of Saul,' ' Hear my

Prayer,' and ot^ier anthems which were published in two volumes in 1798.

WILLIAM H. CTJMMINGS.

I am inclined to think that Phocion Henley (1728-64) and "Orator" Henley (1692-1756) were not related. The life of the latter in the ' D.N.B.' gives his birth- place as Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, where his father succeeded his maternal grandfather as vicar of the parish. He was educated in its neighbourhood, and then graduated at St. John's College, Cambridge.

Phocion Henley, a short life of whom is in the 'D.N.B.,' was the son of John Henley of Wotton Abbas, in the county of Dorset, a member of the Hampshire family of Henley. He graduated at Wadham College, Oxford. His taste was for music, and some years previously that college had been the centre of musical life at Oxford. The Holy well Music Hall was built in 1742 on a site belonging to the college. Phocion Henley, Short of Worcester College, and George Home, of University and Magdalen Colleges, were " friends then well-known in the university for their abilities in music " (Jones of Nayland in 'Works of Home,' ed. 1809, i. 9-10). W. P. COURTNEY.

" Henley, Phocion, s. [of] John, of Abbots Wotton, Dorset, arm. Wadham Coll., matric. 7 May, 1746, aged 18. B.A. 14 Feb., 1749-50." Foster's ' Alumni Oxonienses.' W. D. MACRAY.

May I refer MR. L. H. CHAMBERS for answer to his query to Hutchins's ' History of Dorset,' ii. 264, and iii. 743 ; also Foster's ' Alumni ' and 'D.N.B.' When I was curate of Whitechurch Canonicorum in 1891 I copied the following entry out of the register book there : " Baptised Phocion y e son of John Henley Esq and Hester his wife 6 May, 1728." He was born in the old mansion of Wootton Abbots in that parish, once a grange of the Abbey of Abbotsbury. John Henley's mother, Barbara, the heiress of John Every, Esq., brought it to Sir Robert Henley as his second wife. There are some ancient tombs of the Everys at Whitechurch, where the chancel floor also is adorned by coats of arms and inscriptions in memory of several Henleys of Colmore, kinsmen of Phocion. The progenitor of this race was George Henley, Constable of Taunton Mag- dalen, whose will is dated 4 August, 1545. His son John suffered at the stake in the Marian persecution. Robert his other son was Sheriff of Somerset, 1613, and acquired Leigh in Winsham, now possessed by Col.