Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/529

 ii8.v.jr S Ei,i9i2.j - NOTES AND QUERIES.

437

ceremony of coronation that historic gleam which was needed to redeem it from tawdry commonplace" ('Life of Xapoleon I.,' vol. i. p. 479).

The contents of Childeric's tomb included the remains of a horse, and the so-called

bees were probably nothing more ornaments decorating its harness.

BENJ. WALKER. Gravelly Hill, Erdington.

BAKER PETER SMITH (11 S. v. 330). He was the author of several forgotten books, and among these is a volume entitled " Memoirs of the Rev. William Sellon, for- merly Minister of the Parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, Lecturer at the Magdalen, at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and at St. Andrew's, Holborn, Chaplain to the Earl of Pomfret. By Baker Peter Smith. Shaw & Sons, Fetter Lane, 1852."

Baker Peter Smith was a grandson of William Sellon. He dedicates the memoirs to " his children in the hope that they may yield them pleasure and advantage, and may induce a frequent perusal of their Reverend great-grandfather/' This is dated " Sellon House, Camberwell, 1852."' On the title-page Smith describes himself -as " of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.'' List ' in 1824-9

1810 stepped into his brother-in-law's shoes as steward to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and it is probably with this uncle that Baker Peter was living and getting his training in the law during 1824-9. Baker John was also a police magistrate.

Of William Sellon's daughters who mar- ried, the eldest (whose name I do not know) married Dr. White, treasurer of the Foundling Hospital ; and another daughter, Lydia, married a Mr. Latrobe, an architect.

Besides the ' Memoirs of Sellon,' Baker

Peter Smith was Luminary,' 1837

the author of Ethelbert,

' Smith's Epic

He appears in the ' Law as at Chapter House, St. Paul's, City ; his father Thomas Smith t(m. Sarah Sellon, dau. of William, supra) was steward to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul s, and vestry clerk of the parishes of Tottenham and Stoke Xewington ; the former was his native place, and there he is buried (d. December, 1809). After 1829 Baker Peter Smith appears to have left the above .address, and in 1827-8 he is living at Grosvenor Cottage, Grosvenor Place, Cam- berwell, with offices at the Chapter House. The following were subsequently his resi- dences : in 1829, Camberwell Road ; in 1830-32, 8, Earl -Street, Blackfriars ; 1833, 14, Paper Buildings, Temple ; 1834-5, Chapter House, St. Paul's, again ; 1836-9, Denmark Street, Camberwell ; 1840, the same, and in addition 13, Old Jewry ; 1841-3. 17, Basinghall Street; 1844-50, 77, Basinghall Street.

Besides Sarah Sellon (who m. Thomas Smith, father of Baker Peter Smith), Wil- liam Sellon had three sons and four other daughters. The sons (uncles of Baker Peter Smith) were William Marmaduke, Baker John, and Joseph. The first lived at a farm at Harlesden, and was a magistrate for Middlesex. The second son. Baker John, in

Poem,' 1837 ; ' A Journal of an Excursion round the South-Eastern Coast of England.' 1834 ; and ' Trip to the Far West.' 1840. A. L. HUMPHREYS. 187, Piccadilly, W.

Xo memoir of B. P. Smith has been published, nor have the facts concerning him been brought together in a magazine article.

His father, then Thomas Smith, jun., a native of Stoke Xewington and an attorney, was elected vestry clerk of that parish on 2 Sept., 1782 (Robinson, ' Stoke Xewington,' p. 148). He held the same position at Tottenham, where he lived for many years, and in later life became chapter-clerk and steward to the manors of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. He died 5 Dec., 180<!. being then one Of the Common Council for the ward of Farringdon Within (European Mag., Ivi. 480), and was buried, near his parents, in the churchyard of Stoke Xewing- ton.

The mother of Baker Peter Smith was Sarah, daughter of the Rev. William Sellon, minister of the parish of St. James, Clerken- well (d. 1790), a memoir of whom is included in the ' D.X.B.' She died at Pinner Hill Farm on 21 July, 1801, aged 75. The name of Baker was hereditary, Sir Edward Baker Littlehales, the first baronet of Ranston in Dorset, having been the nephew of Mrs. Sellon. He changed his name to Baker on coming into the estates of Peter William Baker, M.P., the godfather of Baker Peter Smith. Her sister, Martha Ann Sellon, was the author of a poem entitled ' Indi- viduality ; or, The Causes of Reciprocal Mis- apprehension, in six books, illustrated with notes,' 1814. Her brother. Baker John Sellon, serjeant-at-law in 1798, succeeded in 1809 to the position of his brother-in-law at St. Paul's (H. W. Woolrych, ' Serjeants* at-law,' ii. 806-12).