Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/289

 ii s. iv. OCT. 7, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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other facts concerning the Hallett family, but this brief notice of four generations may be taken as sufficient for the present occa- sion, in that it shows the ancestors and descendants of the lady and gentleman in Gainsborough's great picture.

W. ROBERTS. 18, King's Avenue, Clapham Park, S.W.

THACKERAY: THACKERY : WRAY.

THE memory of the author of ' Vanity Fair ' having been prominently in our minds at the recent centenary of his birth, even such a trifle as the origin of his rather unfamiliar surname may be of some interest to those who have read with much pleasure the re- miniscent notes of him contributed to these pages by MB. JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

" Thackray "so spelt in the Ordnance Survey is the name of an ancient home- stead in the Yorkshire parish of Fewston in the Forest of Knaresborough no doubt one of those rough stone houses with mul- lioned windows often met with in that part of the country. The name was formerly, and more correctly, spelt " Thackwray." " Wray " meant a corner, as PROF. SKEAT stated in ' N. & Q.' (ante, p. 35) when refer- ring to Harrogate, formerly " Heywray- gate." As to the prefix " Thack," it is probably " Th' Ack," from a venerable or remarkable oak growing on the site, and known by that name even before there was a house there.

Those who, in former days, lived in, and possibly held, this ancient homestead, must have been the forefathers of all the Thackerys we find scattered about York- shire, some of whom, like the author's ancestors, got no further than the adjoin- ing parish of Hampsthwaite. " The name is now widely diffused in this part of York- shire," wrote the late Mr. Walbran of Ripon, a well-known antiquary. The some- what surprising statement, " no locality now bearing it has hitherto been found," occurs in a full account of the families of the name, especially of the descendants of the Head Master of Harrow, compiled by the late Mr. John Gough Nichols, F.S.A., the editor of The Herald and Genealogist (vol. ii. pp. 315 and 440).

The earliest instance of the name in a contemporary record is given by Mr. Wal- bran in his ' Memorials of Fountains Abbey.' In 1336 John de " Thakwra " held of the Abbot and Convent one messuage and 30 acres (i.e. two oxgangs) at Hartwith.

The family continued to be tenants and ser- vants at the abbey granges until the Dis- solution, holding then Sykesforth Grange. They intermarried with the Askwiths of Pot Grange and of Hampsthwaite.

I remember having read somewhere that the novelist himself once visited Hamps- thwaite, and was shown over the church by one of his own name and race, but did not make himself known. He probably also did not know of the existence of the place whose name he bore, nor that he was then so near it a six-mile drive across a bold and picturesque country with fine views.

The name has been found spelt in many different ways, but it is a pity that the w, though hardly sounded, should have dropped out in most cases ; sometimes qu was used for it. " Wrey " would seem to have meant at one time something more than a corner,, in fact a small meadow of irregular shape,, or an angular strip of ground, or even a sharp turn in a road. To judge from the- Ordnance map, there appears to have been at Thackery such a meadow, within the bend of the stream at the back of the house. Mr. Walbran gives these instances : "a close of medoo called Thakeley wrey, con- taining by estimation xv acres " ! (at Aid- burgh Grange), and " one close of medoo callid Barkhouse wray."

Sometimes the word is used in the plural^ as " The Wrays " in Escrick, which I have seen spelt in deeds "Wreays" and "Rayes." Here a by-road goes up and down over a low ridge, reminding one of the original meaning of "to rise " (see Prof. Skeat's ' Etymo- logical Dictionary ' ) having been to rise and fall as well. " Dunmail Raise " in the Lake District is an example. " Wry " seems to have a distinct root. Perhaps " wray " may have once meant uneven ground where at first even a scythe would be useless.

A. S. ELLIS.

Westminster.

BEWICKIANA.

As my queries at 10 S. ix. 307 elicited only one reply that from MR. D. CROAL THOM- SON (p. 394) perhaps I may be permitted to give what information I have been able to glean since.

The cut of the 'Farmyard,' the head- piece to the Introduction to vol. i. of ' The Birds ' in the eighth (1847) and " Memorial " (1885) editions, is no doubt an entirely new engraving, but why the flight of fieldfares was reversed remains unexplained.