Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/254

 204 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 S.X.MAK. 18,1022. York St. James' Street, upper end 1777 Public Advertiser, June 12. 1777 Morning Post, June 21. "To the Nobility and Gentry. Money ready to be advanced on annuities or personal securities. Nothing less than 500 will be taken any notice of. Letters to be directed to B. B., at York Coffee House, St. James' Street. Honour and secrecy may be depended on." 1793 " Chiefly used by the most respect- able merchants and inhabitants at the west end of the town." Roach. York. . . . New Bridge Street. . . . 1793 "A spacious building with noble apartments : the coffee-room it- self the most elegant perhaps in England. The house is famous for its giblet soup of the finest quality, and the bar is ornamented by one of the mildest, modestest, prettiest, best dressed and most obliging barmaids in the world." Roach. In concluding this list of over 1,500 names, I desire to express my gratitude for the generous and unsolicited assistance 1 have received from Mr. W. B. Hextall of the Inner Temple. To Mrs. A. J. Finberg, to Mr. E. E. Newton and to Mr. Andrew Oliver I am also indebted for kind help. J. PAUI, DE CASTBO. Essex Court, Temple. THE MONTFORT FAMILIES. ALTHOUGH there are a large number of families in England having such surnames as Montfort, Montford, Mountford, Mumford, &c., there are few, if any, that can with certainty trace their descent from either of the two great Montfort families, i.e., Montfort-l'Amaury and Montfort-sur-Risle. Sir Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, has loomed so large in the public eye that many of the English Montforts who have not studied genealogy have taken it for granted that, in some way or other, they must be descended from him. For the assistance of those who are interested in the matter it may be well to state the facts as nearly as they are known. Bardsley, in his ' Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames,' states that the sur- names Mountford, Montford and Mount- fort are of local origin, and mentions two places in Normandy called Montfort, one situated near Argentan and the other near Pont-Audemer. He also refers to the parish of Montford, five miles from Shrewsbury, as a locality which may have given rise to the surname. This latter supposition seems plausible, especially as the surname is most common in the counties of Warwickshire, Shropshire and Stafford- shire. Harrison, in his ' Surnames of the United Kingdom,' also regards it as local and remarks, " There is a Montfort-sur-Risle in the Eure Dept. of France." It is advisable to first consider the question as regards the village of Montford in Shrop- shire. The general adoption of surnames in England began about 1250 and was fairly complete in 1450. A transcription of the registers of Montford has been made by the Rev. J. E. Auden, and he quotes a document dated 1241 in which it is stated that " the bridge of Moneford beyond Shrewsbury " was the appointed place for the meeting of David and Henry III.'s Com- missioners. Other documents also show that during the time surnames were being adopted in England, the parish was not called Montford. Indeed the name of this parish has undergone several changes, which point to the fact that it was the sur- name Montfort that gave the parish its present name, and not that the name of the parish originated the surname. A few abstracts from the registers themselves will indicate this : 27 June 1613. Roger Campion, of Monford, & Dorothy ap John, of Uppington, at Alberburie . . . mar. May 1741. Memorandum. In the beginning of this month His Majesty was pleased to create Henry Bromley, Esqr., Lord of this Manner, a Peer of Great Britain, by the stile & Title of Lord Montfort, Baron of Horseheath in the County of Cambridge ; and my Lord at that time by word of Mouth, gave me Orders to alter the