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 12 s.x. APRIL 29, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 321 LONDON. APRIL 29, 1922. CONTENTS. No. 211. NOTES : Some Mid- Victorian Coteries. 321 Some Changes in Fleet Street. 323 Inscriptions at St. Peter's, Bedford 325 Sir John Lade Apprentices to and from Overseas British Settlers in America Tichbornes of Hartley Mauditt 327. QUERIES: The Crossed Keys at York Ann Harrison- Wheeler Family of Laverton, Glos. " Seize quartiers ' wanted Anna Sewell. 328 Roche Sanadoire F. W. H. Myers : Date of Birth Villiers Family Charles D. Gordon Acting Engineer The Three- volume Novel, its Rise and Decline Oscar Wilde's ' Salome '" Probability is the guide of life," 329 "The Labbut " " Dapp's Hill" " Foregate, Strand" Oldest Half-penny Evening News- paper Barnard of Worksop, Schoolmaster Swinford Shooter's Hill : Projected Military Cemetery Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street Turner The Rev. Joseph E. Stee, 330 Bacon G. D. Baldwin " Be- spoke Bootmaking," 331. REPLIES : Exhibitions of Automata in London, 331 Early Victorian Literature, 332 Mothering Sunday. 334 ' The Fly-fisher's Entomology 'The Width of Cbeapside, 335 The Loss of H.M.S. Tiger Murders in Italy Sprusen's Island, 336 Ledbury, Hereford James Atkinson, M.D. " Standards "General Nicholson's Birthplace. 337 Lieut. -Col. C. M. Edwards The English "h": Celtic. Latin and German Influences Wainwright's Poem on his Murder of Harriet Lane Burr-walnut Early Fire-engines. 338 Pedwardine Family Frances- Calderon de la Barca Author wanted, 339. NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose ' ' Social Life in the Days of Piers Plowman ' ' Paracelsus 'The Quarterly Review. Notices to Correspondents. Jgote*. SOME MID-VICTORIAN COTERIES. IN the course of a long life, it has been my lot to join some small coteries of men called together by a common purpose and .ceasing to exist as the call became faint, without leaving much trace behind them. Lest they should be wholly forgotten, I have put together some notes of my recollections of them. I premise that I was born in Cornhill, on April 10, 1839, within the sound of Bow Bells therefore a veritable Cockney and sent to the school of Mr. William Pinches, in Ball Alley, George Yard, Lombard Street, where I had among my schoolfellows John Henry Brodribb, who in after life became famous as Sir Henry Irving. George Yard was then the yard of the George and Vulture Inn, the scene of Mr. Pickwick's arrest. I was delighted to read in the Reminiscences of Sir Edward Clarke (who came to the school shortly after I had left it) a warm apprecia- tion of our good schoolmaster. When I left school and got employment in an insurance office, the custom of making Saturday a half-holiday was beginning to prevail. This led to the formation of Saturday dining clubs. I joined one which ambitiously called itself the Athenian Club, and was ca.tered for by the proprietor of a private hotel at the bottom of Norfolk Street, overlooking the Thames. Among its members were John Ryder (who belonged to Macready's company) and other actors, Harrison Weir, the animal-painter, and other notable men. We had a room in the hotel which was open to us during the rest of the week, but after some time the proprietor of the hotel found that the tenancy of the Club did not bring him in all the revenue he wished and gave notice to terminate it. The Club died out and most of its member s joined the Arundel Club, which was in pro- cess of formation and had acquired a lease of a fine house at the bottom of Salisbury Street. That Club became, and continued for many years, a delightful resort. W. H. Wills, the dramatist, lived there for some time, and its attractions are described in his Life by his brother, the Rev. Freeman Wills. Among its members were Charles Russell, who became Lord Chief Justice of England ; Frank Lockwood, who became Lord Justice of Appeal ; W. S. Gilbert, Joseph Knight, J. Anderson Rose, George Rose (" Arthur Sketchley ") and a host of others. Many actors (some of them eminent ones) were members. The time to see the Club in its glory was after the theatres were over on a first night, when critics and playgoers and actors would meet and discussion would be general. An Englishman's club was then his castle. No Legislature had ventured to prescribe how long he should stay in it, or what time he should leave it for his other home and go to bed. The lease of the Salisbury Street house expired and the Club moved to the corner house at the east end of Adelphi Terrace. That again was re- quisitioned after some years, and the Club dissolved. Some of its members kept up the habit of dining together in memory of past times. A Saturday dining society was founded in November, 1871, the special purpose of which was to test the faculty of the old inns of London to cater for the wants of its members. It began with the Tabard in Southwark, in memory of Chaucer ; it tried in turn the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street, the inns of Bishopsgate, the Old Bell in