Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/412

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. ix. MAY 23, 1914.

MATTHEW SHORTING (SHOBTYNG), D.D., "head master of Merchant Taylors' School (son of Thomas Shorting of Gayton in Norfolk, farmer, d. 1668), was admitted as a sizar to Jesus College, Cambridge, on 17 June, 1661, =and attached to John Wentworth of West- morland, who was admitted a fellow com- moner on the same day. He graduated B.A. in 1664, and M.A. in 1669, and about the midsummer of 1672 proceeded to King's 'College as one of the conducts or chaplains, and remained in that office till Michaelmas, 1693. He also held the living of Grant- chester near Cambridge. On 25 Sept., 1691, he was appointed head master of Merchant Taylors' School in succession to Ambrose Bonwicke, who had not taken the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary, and refused to do so. In 1696 he took his degree of D.D., and on 18 Oct., 1700, was licensed to his mastership by the Bishop of London. He died in the April of 1707, and was buried in the chancel of St. Mary Ab- church on the 19th of that month.

Dr. Wilson in his ' History of Merchant Taylors' School ' briefly says :

" Of the eleven head masters who had suc- ceeded Mulcaster, he was the first whose destiny at proved to die at his post, in which end of a life xf generous effort for the benefit of society he has been followed with a remarkable uniformity by all his successors. While the teachers in seminaries of far less importance to Church and State have been raised to dignities and honours, the masters of Merchant Taylors have been suffered to labour for the publick till the hour of death, and fall unheeded except by their affec- tionate pupils from their place in the school to their resting-place in the grave."

Dr. Shorting married Anne, sister of Dr. Charles Roderick, Provost of King's College, but by her left no family.

By his will, dated 28 March, and proved in F.P.C., 3 May, 1707, in which he is described as " Doctor of Divinity, and late Master of Merchant Taylors' School, London," he gave to King's College 400Z. for purchasing a living in perpetual advowson for the chaplains of that College, and in accordance with his bequest the Rectory of Hemingby in Lincoln- shire was bought in' 1 73 1. He also bequeathed 201. and a ring of 40s. to Dr. Roderick for Jiis trouble about the above bequest, and further directed that after the death of his widow the remainder of his property should pass to John Byng, only son of John Byng <of Chesterton in Cambridgeshire.

Anne Shorting died 26 Aug., 1730, and was buried in one of the vestries of King's College Chapel, near the place of Provost Charles Roderick, her brother. His sister

Frances married by licence from the Faculty Office, granted 29 Oct., 1688, John Byng above mentioned.

There are two manuscript letters of Dr. Shortyng's in King's College Library, written in 1702, in which he spells his name with a y. Wilson observes that the Doctor's signatures to the school probations exhibit a variation in the spelling of his name ; he appears a short time before his decease to have changed i into y without removing the dot over the former letter.

Information as to the descendants of John and Frances Byng is asked for.

ERNEST H. H. SHORTING.

Broseley, Shropshire.

THE LAST OF THE WAR Bow. (See 10 S. i. 225, 278, 437, 497.) A much more recent example of the use of bows and arrows in war and one, indeed, absolutely " up to date " can now be given. In The Illus- trated London News for 16 April appeared a picture of the Mexican General Villa's troops attacking at Torreon, this being labelled * Bows and Arrows and Rifles,' and many of Villa's men being shown using the older weapon. ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

THE PERSISTENCE OF THE KILT. An extremely interesting glimpse of the per- sistence of kilt - wearing, which I do not think has been printed before, appears in a memorial which Col. Alexander MacDonell of Glengarry, commanding the 2nd Inverness- shire Local Militia, wrote to Lord Liverpool on 13 July, 1809. MacDonell is usually regarded as the last genuine specimen of a Highland chief, which justifies Scott's in- stinct in painting his portrait as Fergus Mac Ivor in ' Waverley. '

MacDonell, whose memorial is preserved at the Public Record Office (H.O. 50, 209), wanted, and ultimately got, the kilt adopted as the uniform of his corps. In urging its claims he wrote :

" That the Corps is composed of a body of real Highlanders, unmixed, in every respect.

" That the greater part of them have worn no other than the Highland dress since their infancy ; and that, tho' a Loyal Spirit and Inclination is congenial to them, yet it must be allowed that the dress had some attraction in bringing them into the Volunteer Establishment [of 1798], and from that Establishment they transferred their services into the new Local Militia [in 1808], with the expectation that they should be indulged in the native dress.

" That being obliged to put on breeches is very unwelcome, and to them in many respects incon- venient."

When the Hon. Archibald Campbe 1 ! Fraser][(youngest son of the notorious Lord