Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/455

 ii s. V.MAY n, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

the Saracens, and delivered the people from them ; for which deed William, Count of Marseilles, gave him the fringe of the gulf (St. Tropez) in fief 'and reward."

The history of the Moors in Spain has been often written, but I cannot recall any good history in English of the Moors in Provence. No more romantic subject could possibly be chosen by any one who would explore the archives of this region with a view to such a narrative. W. F. PBIDEAUX.

Villa Paradis, Hyeres.

SELKIBK FAMILY (11 S. v. 109, 236). MB. W. CLEMENT KENDALL asks if any- thing is known of the Selkirk family. In my youth I was told that the real Robinson Crusoe was born in Largo, Fifeshire, and brought home thither his noted trunk and a cocoa-nut shell which he had carved for a drinking-cup. This an admiring visitor had taken away from the house said to have been his birthplace, but it was only to put on a silver rim, with engraved details which I cannot now remember. It will not be forgotten on the spot. C. C. STOPES.

TOBRENS (11 S. v. 289). The fleeting character of a minor politician's fame is strikingly illustrated by the very putting of this query, for from thirty to fifty years ago there was no better-known name among the metropolitan members of the House of Commons than that of McCullagh Torrens, one of the Liberal representatives of the old undivided borough of Finsbury, with Andrew Lusk throughout as his colleague, from 1865 to 1885. " Torrens's Act " for the provision of artisans' dwellings, by which his legislative fame was made, was not, as J. D. thinks, " passed by one of .Disraeli's ministries," though it was adopted in 1868, when the Conservative statesman was Prime Minister for the first time, despite the fact that there was a Liberal majority in the House of Commons. POLITICIAN.

The introducer of the Bill that became known as " Torrens's Act " (31 & 32 Viet, chap. 130) was William Torrens McCullagh (eldest son of James McCullagh of Delville and Jane Torrens of Dublin), a graduate of Trin. Coll., Dublin, and a member of the Irish and English Bars. In Parliament he represented Dundalk from 1847 to 1852, and, after being member for Great Yarmouth for a short time, he ' represented Finsbury (London) for twenty years. It was in 1863, before going to Finsbury, that he took his mother's name, and was thereafter McCullagh Torrens. For an account of his career see 'D.N.B.' A. T. W.

The " Torrens Act " was a system of registration of title of land which was introduced throughout Australia between 1858 and 1862 by Sir R. R. Torrens, the first Premier of South Australia.

William Torrens McCullagh Torrens, who sat for several years in Parliament for various constituencies as an independent Liberal, introduced more than one Bill dealing with social questions, including the Artisans' Dwellings Bill of 1868. He is also known by his biography of the second Viscount Melbourne, which was published in 1878. Both McCullagh Torrens and Sir R. R. Torrens are noticed in vol. Ivii. of the ' D.N.B.,' to which J. D. is referred.

R. L. MOBETON.

For some account of William McCullagh Torrens, M.P., see his autobiography, ' Twenty Years in Parliament,' published in 1893; also 'Dictionary of National Biography,' the memoirs of Viscount Mel- bourne, and The Times obituary (1894).

R. B.

Upton.

[MR. FRANCIS G. STALKY, MR. THOS. WHITE, MR. E. F. Row, and other correspondents also thanked for kind replies.]

THE DTTCHESS OF GLOUCESTEB AXD PEEL CASTLE (8 S. ix. 382, 452; x. 149). It is perhaps a far cry back to 1896, when, under my then literary initials J. B. S., I initiated at the first reference, and closed at the last, a brief inquiry under this heading, but I am desirous to complete that inquiry by the following recent discovery. In the ' D.N.B.,' xxviii. 246 (former edition), Prof. Tout wrote, s.v. ' Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester': " She [the duchess] was imprisoned in the Isle of Man. She is said to have been imprisoned in Peel Castle until her death." But in vol. x. p. 243 (ed. 1908) the Professor, on the evidence adduced by me at the last reference (which he quotes), altered the sentences thus : " She was ordered to be imprisoned " and " She is erroneously said to have been imprisoned." Thus causa finita est, and ' N. & Q.' should record the fact as well as the ' D.N.B.'

J. B. McGovEBN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

ABBEY OF AUMONE (11 S. v. 229). This Cistercian house was founded (as the six- teenth on the roll of the Order) on 28 June, 1121, by some monks who came direct from the original mother house at Citeaux (see Father Janauschek's great work, ' Origines Cistercienses,' Vienna, 1877, vol. i. p. 10, and the elaborate " genealogy " of