Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/335

 us. vi. OCT. 5, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

275

Mary; 1687, 14 Aug., Jane ; 1692, 8 May, Samuel. Burials 1680, 30 Sept., Joseph (sic) ; 1690, 16 Nov., unbapt. dau. ; 1691, 16 May, Jane, wife of Samuel. Samuel appears to have married twice after the death of his first wife, for there is the burial, 1693/4, 21 Feb., Margaret, wife of Samuel ; and the marriage, 1695, 5 Sept., of Samuel Denton and Rosamond Wilkinson, with two more baptisms: 1696, 17 July, Edward; 1705, 25 June, Barbara. Then follow the burials 1716, 14 Aug., Samuel Denton, labourer ; 1719, 21 Sept., Rose Denton, of Kirk Ella, widow.

Another Robert, a son of James Denton of Kirk Ella, was bapt. 9 Feb., 1700 ; but rib Roberts are buried at Kirk Ella.

LEO C.

THE LONDON BRICKLAYEB (US. vi. 187). The word " bricklayer" has so changed its meaning some time since about the end of the eighteenth century that it would be interest- ing to know which Dickens, in the passage quoted, intended to stigmatize the skilled artisan or the unskilled workman, whom we term to-day " bricklayer " and " bricklayer's labourer" respectively. The bricklayer of the present time lays bricks, which is skilled labour, has to serve an apprenticeship, and earns twice the wages of the bricklayer's labourer, who digs foundations, mixes mortar, unloads and stacks bricks, and keeps the bricklayer supplied with the two last- named articles.

As late as 1780, and until the meaning changed, however, the term " bricklayer " was synonymous with the "builder" of to-day. One of the biggest contractors, as we should now say, of his period, William Hobson of Markfield. Tottenham (d. 1840), who built some of the London docks and the Martello towers on the Essex coast, was described at his marriage, circa 1780, as " brick- layer, Citizen, and Fishmonger " ; and the eighteenth-century obituaries contain many references to " eminent bricklayers."

I do not consider that the ' N.E.D.' does justice to the changed meaning of the term " bricklayer," nor to that of the word " carpenter," which has undergone a similar process, having also been synonymous with our "builder" at a time when other than wooden or wooden-framed houses were rare.

The fusion of trades that has taken place is, of course, responsible for these altered meanings. Formerly, to build a half- timbered, lath-and-plaster house a carpenter, a plasterer, and a tiler- would have been

separately employed. To-day, one man would undertake the whole thing, the three different crafts having become departments of his business. P. LUCAS.

28, Orchard Street, W.

AVENAM (US. vi. 190). This word means an intake or enclosure made by the com- munity of a village from the commons and waste, and partitioned between the lord or lords and their free -tenants in proportion to their interests or holdings in the village. In Yorkshire references to the " avenam " may be found in early charters in scores of places. In the Lancashire village where I live this mediaeval enclosure, still divided into numerous parcels, is called " Yanham," the portions formerly belonging to departed owners still bearing distinctive names, as " Cock Yanham," " Bagot Yanham," &c.

The word is derived from O.E. niman or nimen, to take possession of, to seize ; whence ndm, the thing seized, distress. The word has a more extended sense in Old Norse, meaning not only seizure, but learning, and, as in "land-nam," occupation of land. In the form " of-nam," later " avenam," the word was employed, as stated, for an " intake " or land " taken off " the village commons. " Nam " and " ni- man " (sb. and v. respectively) were latin- ized into namium and namiare, distress and to distrain. W. FARBEB.

Over Kellet, Carnforth.

LOWNDES'S ' BIBLIOGBAPHER'S MANUAL ' (11 S. vi. 103, 191). To what has already been printed may I add that the first two parts of this book were issued in July, 1828? The Monthly Literary Advertiser, August. 1828, p. 64, says, under ' New Books pub- lished in July,' " Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, Parts 1 and 2, 8vo, 5s. each." The entry is repeated on p. 99 in the ' Alpha- betical List of New Books published in 1828.'

The Literary Gazette, 2 Aug., 1828, p. 496. says in its advertisements :

" Parts I. and II. price 5s. each.

" The Bibliographer's Manual, by William Thomas Lowndes.

" Being an account of Rare, curious and useful books, published in, or relating to, Great Britain and Ireland, from the invention of printing. With Bibliographical and critical notices, colla- tions of the rarer articles, and the prices at which they have been sold in the present century

" As the Editor's attention has been devoted to the compilation of the Bibliographer's Manual for many years, he may, perhaps without the imputation of improper vanity, flatter himself that the result of his researches will become a useful, if not an indispensable addition to t the