Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/151

 11 S. VII. FEB. 22, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 143

days after this decision The Church Times stated that "the upshot of the whole story is this-the supremacy of the Crown over the Colonial Church is utterly gone; and the foreign branches of the Anglican Communion are as free as air....The Colonies owe much, no doubt, to the Mother Country; but they have now an opportunity of repaying the debt-they can teach her Church how to be free."

JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

(To be concluded.)

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH AND SARAH HOGGINS.

(See 7 S. xii. 221, 281, 309, 457, 501; 8 S. i. 387, 408; 11 S. vii. 61, 83.)

THE OVERSEERS ACCOUNTS for Great Bolas, 1770 to 1818, show that in 1790, when Mr. "John Jones" first appears as a ratepayer, fourteen persons paid rates at Great Bolas. The smallest ratepayers were Thomas Hoggins, who paid 7s. 4½d., and Mr. Jones and Richard Fox, who paid 7s. 10½d. each. The two highest were Joseph Slack, who paid 17l. 6s. 10½d., and the Rev. Mr. Hill (the Rector), who paid 16l. 8s. 10½d. Eight persons were rated in respect of property at Meeson, a township of Bolas, the highest being John Groucock, who paid 9l. 12s. 9d., and the lowest three cottagers, who paid 6s. each.

Mr. John Jones's payments during his residence at Bolas were as follows:-

After this year the names of ratepayers are not given, but merely such items as "1798. Received a Sixpenny Levy, 18l. 14s. 9d.," or "a Threepenny Levy." The Accounts run from May to May each year. During the years 1790 to 1795 Thomas Hoggins, the Countess's father, paid 7s. 4½d., 8s. 8½d., 7s. 10½d., 7s. 10½d., 9s. 2¼d., and 7s. 5¼d. ; after 1795 his name disappears from the Overseers' Accounts. He was Overseer in 1761, 1777, 1785, and 1794, and Churchwarden in 1760 and 1768, and he wrote an excellent hand.

The Churchwardens' Accounts of Great Bolas, 1699 to 1799, have these items about Mr. John Jones:-

The total of these Accounts was small; in 1790 only 3l. 3s. 3½d. altogether, of which Joseph Slack paid 1l. 8s. 10½d. I have complete lists of the Churchwardens and Overseers of Great Bolas, and the name "John Jones" does not occur in them. I am quite sure that he did not serve either office during his residence at Bolas.

The house which Mr. Jones erected on Bolas Heath, and in respect of which he was rated, can still readily be traced in the larger one which was built on to it by Mr. Tayleur. It was a small three-storied house, with a passage on the ground-floor, a small sitting-room on either side, and a kitchen at the back. It was called Bolas Villa, but a few years later its name was changed to Burleigh Villa. The present dining-room, on the west side of the house, contains one of the original rooms and entrance-hall. The pew in Bolas Church behind the large rectory pew, on the south side of the church, is the one which belongs to this house, and which Mr. Jones occupied.

There are no monuments to the Hoggins family in the church or churchyard. Miss Maria Hoggins, the Countess Sarah's niece, stated that Henry Jones, their infant son,

"was interred near the pulpit in Bolas Church, a small tablet being placed over the spot, which my father and other relations remember."-Salopian Shreds and Patches, 11 November, 1891.

I am doubtful about this interment in the church, for, on a recent visit to Bolas, the aged sexton told me that, in digging a grave in the churchyard, he came upon a vault which his curiousity impelled him to open. On one side was a small coffin, and the coffin-plate showed him it was John Jones's child that was buried here; whilst on the other side were two coffins bearing the name Hoggins-"John" and "Sarah," he thought, the christian names were. My own impression is that the sexton's memory was at fault here, and  that they are more