Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/334

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vi. OCT. 5, 1912.

The line was not long to exist in male descent after the great Nonjuror's death. His great-nephews (who sold his papers to Tanner, much to the advantage of the nation as far as history is concerned) were the last of the Sancrofts, and William Bancroft of Ufford Hall, who died in 1720, left no son. The estate, however, came to the children of one of the two sisters who were all that remained of the old family. The son of Elizabeth Bancroft (who married John Wogan of Gawdy Hall, Esq.) acquired Ufford Hall by marrying his first cousin, its heiress, while the old books, portraits, silver, and other possessions %vere divided between the two sisters of the last of the Sancrofts. In these two families they yet remain, while the acres went to the daughter of the eldest sister, who died in 1764. In the beginning of the last century they were still in the possession of her descendants, but have since then been eold.

A clear and verified record of twenty generations of ownership seems worthy of note, even though only seventeen of these owners in direct descent bore the family name. Bishop Stubbs has left it on record that such quiet country-folks as these Sancrofts " made the strength of England in ancient days " ; but he sadly notes at the same time that few of them took the trouble to preserve or verify their own history. The de Sancrofts, Sandcrofts, or Sancrofts were an exception, and those who descend from them can clearly trace the story of an obscure family from that de Sandcroft

whose son William married Alice ,

temp. Henry III., to the two families still extant, whose pedigree is thus a clear record from 1200 to 1912. Y. T.

None of your correspondents seem to have mentioned the Drury family, whose pedigree is traced back to the Norman Conquest in the male line without a break.

CHARLES DRTJRY.

^ BAG ENVELOPES (11 S. v. 467'; vi. 52).

Since writing my query, which appears at the first reference given above, I have dis- covered that Tuck's hermetic envelope is described and illustrated in The Mechanics' Magazine for 17 Oct., 1840, vol. xxxiii. p. 388, from which it appears that the postage stamp is to be used for the purpose of securing the flap, as suggested by your correspondent A. S. at the second reference. At p. 864 of the same volume of The Mechanics' Magazine there is an extract

from The Examiner in praise of the new envelope. The address was to be written on the same side as the flap, or on what we should now regard as the back of the envelope. Tuck's envelope therefore belongs to the pre-adhesive days, as the first sug- gestion for an adhesive envelope was made by Capt. Basil Hall in a letter to Rowland Hill dated 31 Dec., 1840 (see ' Life of Row- land Hill,' i. 418). R. B. P.

CHAINED BOOKS (11 S. vi. 69, 136, 177, 215). MR. STEEL will find several references to chained books in situ in ' Old- World Places,' by Allan Fea, a recent book dealing with the counties bordering on the Fens. J. BEACH WHITMORE.

During a recent sojourn near Guildford I inspected the fine Royal Free Grammar School in the High Street of that quaint Surrey town, and visited, inter alia, the library, a low-ceilinged panelled room in the north-east angle, wherein are carefully preserved eighty-five chained volumes in modern bookcases protected by wire-netting. Of these Mr. J. E. Morris, B.A., says in his ' Surrey's Capital ' :

" The nucleus of this collection was a gift of his Latin books and 201. by Bishop Parkhurst (d. 1574). Other volumes have been subsequently added by members of the Austen, More, and Onslow families. It is scarcely likely that these ponderous volumes tomes of Calvin, and Beza, and Zwinglius are much resorted to by the ' tender ympes ' who are now ' trayned upp ' at the Grammar School."

I noted that the books were placed backs inward, owing to the position of the chains, and I am not aware that this fact or even the existence of the library itself has been referred to outside Mr. Morris's little volume. The present building was begun in 1557, and the royal charter was granted by Edward VI. in 1552, but the original founda- tion (due to Robert Beckingham, d. 1509) antedates it by some fifty years.

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

ROBERT DENTON (US. vi. 169). On the chance of the information being of interest

I call attention to the following entries in the (printed) parish register of Kirk Ella, co. York, E.R. : 1670, 8 Dec., Samuel Denton and Jane Hornsee married. Entered^ as children of Samuel: baptisms 1671,' 13 Nov., John ; 1675, 1 Nov., Joshua ; 1677/8.27 Jan., Samuel [? Denton] ; 1681/2,

II March, Joshuah ; 1684/5, 18 Jan.,