Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/460

 454

NOTES AND Q UEEIES. in s. iv. DEC. 2, 1911.

favour with the military authorities, for he remarks with some bitterness in his in 1816-17:
 * Adieu to Ceylon, written on Board of Ship,'

Farewell, ye Staff, with formal face,

In all the pomp and " pride of place,"

Of you I have not much to say,

I never touch'd your double pay,

But ever was a luckless sinner,

Who seldom shared a King's house dinner,

While every idle word that hung

Upon my heedless pen, or tongue, Was deemed a sly intei

intended hit, To show my wicked wanton wit.

From which it seems that his propensity for writing verses was not appreciated. But in 1803 he had been very friendly with the officers massacred at Kandy letters from four of whom, as well as from Major Davie, the commanding officer, he prints at the end of his ' Poems written chiefly in India ' ; and also with Surgeon W. S. Andrews of the 19th, to whom he dedicates this book. He was twice married. Two daughters Julia, "by his wife - ," and Sarah, by his second wife Sarah were baptized at St. Peter's Church, Fort Colombo, on 10 April, 1808 ; and a son, Danvers Wentmore, at the same church on 6 Sep- tember, 1811. A third daughter, Victoria Maria Frances Molesworth, evidently called after the 6th Viscount Molesworth, Lieut. - Col. 2nd Ceylon Regiment, who was in the island 1805-15, was buried at Trincomalee on 20 June, 1816. These ' Poems ' show that he was a Scotchman.

Lieut. Anderson accompanied Lieut. - Col. Barbut's expedition to Kandy in 1803, leaving Trincomalee on the 4th of February, and reaching Kandy on the 21st of the same month. He was allowed by General Mac- dowall to return to Trincomalee, and left Kandy on the 20th of March with 12 con- valescent Europeans and a guard of 30 men of the Malay Regiment, arriving at Trinco- malee on the 28th. It was owing to his desire to get back to Trincomalee that he escaped the Kandy debacle. The ' Journal ' kept by him during his service with Barbut is printed at the end of some of the copies of his ' Poems written chiefly in India,' but the British Museum copy, I believe, does not contain it. He was appointed commandant of Calpentyn, 1 December, 1810, and was commandant of Batticaloa, 1815-16. In the war of 1815 he commanded the "7th Division," which was to march up to Kandy from Batticaloa. He had got as far as Bintenne, now known by its proper name, Alutnuwara, nearly 50 miles from Kandy, when the latter place was taken and the war

was at an end. This, in addition to the information received from your corre- spondents, is all I know about him.

PENRY LEWIS.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S FIRST SCHOOL (11 S. iv. 107). To the evidence given in my former notice of the Duke's first school in Trim I add further testimony.

Sir John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury (b. about 1388, d. 1453), is said to have built " Talbot Castle " at Trim, co. Meath, where he frequently resided during his different lieutenancies of Ireland, and where, on a stone in the building, the Talbot arms may still be seen.

This house became the Diocesan School of Meath, its head master at the very beginning of the nineteenth century being the Rev. James Hamilton, M.A. (b. 1776, d. 1847), who after a distinguished career at Trinity College, Dublin, held, in addition to the curacy of. Trim, the small rural living of Almoritia. He was uncle and educator of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Kt. (b. 1805, d. 1865), Royal Astronomer of Ireland, whose ' Life,' in three volumes, by Robert Perceval Graves, M.A., was published in 1882. In the first volume, p. 84, is the following passage :

" The Diocesan School of Meath, presided over by his uncle, was held in the remains of Talbot' s Castle, built by ' the Scourge of France ' early in the fifteenth century, when he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In this school the illustrious Duke of Wellington received his early education, and here Hamilton lived with his uncle."

The house, now called St. Mary's Abbey, within the precincts of which it stood, was purchased from the Hamiltons by Mr. A. V. Montgomery, who at present resides there. He has kindly written to me as follows :

" The tradition has always been accepted that the young Wesleys, including Arthur, received their early education here, and one of the attics is reputed to have been their dormitory."

R. E. E. CHAMBEBS.

Pill House, Barnstaple.

FRIDAY AS CHRISTIAN NAME (11 S. iv. 310, 395). MR. RHODES, at the latter refer- ence, states :

" It was possibly a foundling named Darke Satterday [should be Setterday] who was [? buried] at St. Nicholas's, Newcastle, on 25 February, 1597 ('Chronicon Mirabile,' p. 97)." This entry does not refer to a burial at all, but to an event " Darke Setterday, was 25 feb., 1597," meaning that the day was so dark as to be known by that appellative. Many such entries are made in old parish registers. RICHD. WELFORD.