Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/37

 12 8. II. JULY 8, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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can be seen from Clifton, on the other side of the River Avon. Edward Hill was a lawyer, and he was a widower when he married Margaret Bradford, widow of a Mr. Tyler, who " was of a good family in Hereford- shire." For details, see the second of the seventeen interesting letters to his friend Mr. John May, prefixed to ' The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' edited by his son, the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey. THOMAS BAYNE.

MORRIS (12 S. i. 487). In answer to X. Y. Z., I am now in a position, through the kindness of Mr. W. J. Bridle of Topsham, to add that William Morris was baptized at St. Margaret's, Topsham, April 21, 1715, " son of Mr. George Morris and Sarah his wife " (daughter of Capt. Samuel Paul). Mr., or, as he was more often styled, Capt., George Morris was son of Capt. Simon Morris by his wife Susanna, daughter of Mr. George Hodder, merchant and shipowner of Topsham, at that date one of our principal seaport towns.

Capt. George Morris, on retiring from the sea, engaged in business as a sail- and rope- maker, which business he left to his youngest son, Hodder. He also took a prominent part in the government of the old town as churchwarden, chairman of Board of Guardians, &c.

William Morris entered the naval service at an early age, and was in January, 1739, made master of H.MS. Marlborough, 90, on the West Indian station, by Admiral Nicholas Haddock.

He was master of the Eltham in Vernon's attack on Cartagena, and was successively master of H.M.S. Lark, which he joined at Liverpool, June 13, 1744, and of H.M.S. Captain same year. He was in Topsham in October, 1 745, and was party, with his nephew Simon Morris, merchant, Thos. Moggridge, the Pasmores, Rowes, Sainthills, and .other Topsham families, to the " Exeter Asso- ciation" in support of George II.

He was appointed to the Prince George July 25, 1746, and joined the Somerset at Portsmouth Jan. 25, 1759, when he took advantage of his position to bring his son William into the service as his " servant." The Somerset sailed on Feb. 14 in company with the fleet under Rear-Admiral Holmes, destined to co-operate in the expedition to Quebec, and in his log Morris gives a most interesting account of her voyage convoying the transports.

In April, 1761, he was master of H.M.S. Shannon, Capt. Richard Braithwaite, when

introduced his son George on board, with the rating of " A.B.," the elder, William, aeing rated midshipman their companions in the midshipmen's mess being Wilfrid and

uthbert Collingwood (the future Admiral Lord Collingwood), rated respectively as " captain's servant " and " Vol. A.B." These peculiar ratings have led Campbell !' Lives of the Admirals') and Macaulay very much astray as to the social position of naval officers when dealing with this subject, and have been the fruitful origin of " cabin boy to Admiral " stories. The Collingwoods were the nephews of Capt. Braithwaite, and practically every naval officer at this date

ntered the service with these ratings.

Morris was successively master of the Warspite, 74 ; Jersey, 60 ; Montreal and Alarm frigates ; and was from March 1 1 to April 1 4, 1773, in charge of Naval Stores at Gibraltar, when master of the last-named ship. He was in command as master of the Con- questadore from Nov. 2, 1775, to July, 1782, and of the Prince Edward from Jury, 1782, to May, 1783.

In March, 1775, he was called upon by the overseers of the poor of Topsham to enter into a bond in the sum of 501. to bind an apprentice to one Samuel Woolcot, for his estate called Morrises in Topsham, his domicile at the time being Paradise Row, Rotherhithe. His neighbours at this date were Capt. Wilson of the East India Co., who had charge of Prince Lee Boo, and Robert Williams, East India Co.'s surveyor. He died on half -pay, April 20, 1790, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey. W. M.

THE MOUNT, WHITECHAPEL (12 S. i. 485). Respecting MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS'S recent memorandum upon the Whitechapel Mount, it may be mentioned that the late Rev. E. C. Carter, Vicar of St. Jude's, Whitecliapel, who was lost in the foundering of the Titanic before his historical study of the region was completed, suggested the proba- bility that the original Whitechapel Mount was a huge earthwork erected in Saxon times to serve as a fortification against the Danes who dominated the Eastern Counties. The West Heath of the Tudor Mile End Common extended from the Watch -House on t road to Essex, at what is now called Stepney Green, to the Whitechapel Mount on (M south side of the ancient historic thorough- fare The London Hospital stands on t portion of the West Heath of the Mile End Common. In 1748 it was known as 1 Mount Field. One Samuel \\orrall,