Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/481

 ii s. ix. JUNE is, 19U.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

475

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION WANTED (1 S. ix. 430). (1) ROBERT CLAYTON. Thi boy was evidently .son of Sir Robert Clayton sometime member of Parliament for th City of London, and Lord Mayor, 1679-80 He is referred to in the inscription to the memory of his father and mother in Bletch ingley Church, Surrey, as " christened Robert, and died very young." He wa buried in St. Martin's, Westminster, and the following is recorded as his epitaph in Mait land's ' History of London,' 1739

" Hie juxta situs est Robertas Clayton Armiger; qui Literis, ad quas natus, assuetus olim Scholiae Regies Westmonast. Alumnus hinc Trin. Coll. Cantabr. Discipulus, Templi demiurr [sic] interior-is Socius, ubique loci delicise & decus ingenio pariter prsecoci ac facto quo functus esi Dec. 14, 1672, (Etatis 28."

JOHN T. PAGE.

(9) JAMES COCHRANE (?), s., Robert of

St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, gent. ;

Balliol Coll. matric. 7 Nov., 1720, aged 17.

A. R. BAYLEY.

ATJTHOR WANTED (11 S. ix. 429). The verification of the second quotation at the above reference

At the muckin' o' Geordie's byre is Nicol, ' Poems' (1805), iv. 156 (re "Meg's mucking," " at Geordie's byre," and the "scartle"). H. H. JOHNSON.

In David Herd's ' Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads,' &c., 1776 (1869 reprint, vol. ii., p. 201), the first of the ' Fragments of Comic and Humorous Songs ' is * Mucking of Geordie's Byre.' This runs :

The mucking of Geordie's byre, And shooling the grupe sae clean,

Has gard me weit my cheiks

And greit with baith my een. It was ne'er my father's will, Nor yet my mother's desire That e'er I should file my fingers, Wi' mucking of Geordie's byre. The mouse is a merry beast,

And the moudewort wants the een : But the world shall ne'er get wit

Sae merry as we ha'e been. It was ne'er, &c.

The verse quoted by MR. WM. C. DOUGLAS is probably part of the same song.

IOLO A. WILLIAMS.

BLIND MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (11 S. ix. 430). To the names of Prof. Fawcett and Sir William Robinson may be added that of Mr. W. A. Macdonald,' a sightless member of the Irish Nationalist Party, who sat at Westminster in the eighties.

Australia provides a parallel to Prof. Fawcett in the Hon. Mr. McKenzie, who was not only a blind Member of the Parliament of Victoria, but also a Minister of the Crown, with a marvellous memory for dates and facts. J. F. HOGAN.

Royal Colonial Institute,

Northumberland Avenue.

RAWDON FAMILY (11 S. ix. 428). There is no justification for the unsupported state- ment of H. H. that " this family is of Norman extraction." The claim made on behalf of the mythical Paulin de Rawdon, that he " commanded a body of archers at the battle of Hastings in, William's army," is as gro- tesque as that made on behalf of the equally mythical ancestor of Grimston of Grimston Garth, one Sylvester de Grimston, that he was standard - bearer to William the Conqueror. In Sylvester's personality Mr. Round wholly disbelieves. See ' Peerage and Pedigree,' ii. 154. I have shown in a letter to The Yorkshire Post of 8 Nov., 1910, that the accepted pedigree of the Grim- stons during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is utterly worthless.

The late Mr. Richard Holmes has sug- gested that the Rawdons were descended from the family of Birkin (Thoresby Soc., ' Miscellanea,' ix. 33). It seems desirable, in view of this sound suggestion, to look for the ancestry of Michael de Rawdon among the kinsmen of Alexander de Ledes, who had a brother Richard living in 1250 (ib. ' Mis- cellanea,' iv. 52-3). In 1251 Richard de Ledes successfully defended a plea of dis- seisin relating to a tenement in Rawdon ''Yorks. Assize Rolls,' p. 77); and some years later we find John Fitz -Richard holding ive bovates in Rawdon of the fee of Percy The Percy Chartul.,' Surtees Soc., p. 476). Again there is mention in 1246 of Richard de Ledes holding three acres of land in Rawdon of Alan, son of Aldusa de Raudon, and Pain lis brother (Feet of Fines, 39, n. 93).

The unreliability of the pedigree of Rawdon

Foster's * Yorks. Pedigrees ' ) is indicated by

,he appearance of Serlo de Raudon, who

ived in 1246 (' Calverley Chs.,' Thoresby Soc.,

. 45), as flourishing temp. Stephen, and as

grandfather of Michael de Raudon, whose

period was 1280-1310. When so much

eliable record material is available in the

mblications of the Record Office, British

luseum, and a host of archaeological societies,

t is waste of time to study the uncritical

work of past pedigree -makers, whose sources

of information were very limited, and their

chronological faculties hardly developed.

W. FARRER.