Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/81

 12 8. II. JULY 22, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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son of Dr. John Randolph, Bishop suc- cessively of Oxiord, Bangor, and London {'D.N.B.,' xlvii. 274). Oxenden, who married Elizabeth Wilson (his first wife) in 1824 (Gentleman's Magazine, xciv. i. 272), had by her a son who succeeded to the family baronetcy (Cokayne's 'Baronetage,' iv. 100). Was it by chance or because Wilson had once been Lord Eldon's secretary that both the sons-in-law obtained a living in the gift of the Chancellor ? Randolph became Rector of Burton Coggles, Lincolnshire, in 1816 ; and Oxenden, Rector of Luddenham, Kent, in 1827.

Richard Wilson owned, in Wiltshire, the manor of Bemerton, which he acquired after ihe death of the last Lord Ched worth, who >died in 1804 (Hoare's 'Modern Wiltshire,' II. i. 156 ; G. E. C.'s ' Peerage,' ii. 216). He was one of Lord Chedworth's executors, and -an account of the friendship between the two men is given in The Gentleman's Maga- zine, Ixxiv. ii. 1242-4.

Upon the death of his brother, a surgeon, -John Wilson of Hepscot, who died at Morpeth, aged 68, in 1820 (Gentleman's Magazine, xc. ii. 638), Richard Wilson in- herited the manor of East Dudden in Stannington, Northumberland; and also Hepscot Hall and other property at Morpeth, which he subsequently sold to the Earl of Carlisle. The brothers descended from the Wilsons of Ulgham. See Hodgson's ' North- umberland,' II. ii. 288, 439. H. C.

Richard Wilson of Lincoln's Inn Fields, attorney, sometime secretary to Lord Eldon, was baptized at Morpeth in Northumberland on Oct. 5, 17o9, being the twelfth child of George Wilson of Hepscott, a small estate purchased, in 1667, by his ancestor Richard Wilson, a Westmorland man. George Wil- son's wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Joh. Nowell of Naworth, receiver, or land agent, of the Earl of Carlisle.

It is stated that, after serving his articles to an attorney at Hexham, Richard Wilson went to London with his filial portion of some three hundred pounds, and through native shrewdness, a coarse humour, and the countenance of his kinsman John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, built up a very good practice, being popularly known as Morpeth Dick. I believe he was a member of the well-known Beef-Steak Club. On Feb. 20, 1784, he married, at Margate, Miss Hannah Harwood, by whom he had issue a son, who died in early innnhood, and at least two daughters. Kiivinur succeeded by survivor- ship to the family property at Morpeth, East

Duddoe, and Hepscott, he sold the same, and purchased other property at Bildeston in Suffolk, with which county his wife was connected. There he made some name for himself as a breeder of blood horses; and there he died on June 7, 1834, from the results of a wound from a spring gun.

J. C. HODGSON.

Alnwick.

SKULL AND IRON NAIL (US. xii. 181, 306, 389, 409, 490; 12 S. i. 77, 133). Mr. Baring- Gould, in a chapter on ' The Meaning of Mourning ' included in his ' Curiosities of Olden Times,' enumerates expedients for ensuring the imprisonment of dead men in their graves, to the intent that they may not return to affright the living. The Finns, for instance, nail the corpse in his coffin.

" The Arabs tie his legs together. The Wallacks drive a long nail through the skull ; and this strange usage explains the many skulls that have been exhumed in Germany thus perforated." Pp. 8, 9.

ST. SWITHIN.

AN ENGLISH ARMY LIST OF 1740 (12 S. ii. 3). John Blathwait was youngest son of Wm. Blathwait, Secretary at War 1683-9, and M.P. for Newtown and Bath, died Aug. 26, 1717. John Blathwait died April 21, 1752.

Jonathan Driver d. July 30, 1754.

Thomas Eaton d. Cheshunt, Herts, Aug. 15, 1743.

John Elves d. July 6, 1758.

Robert Fairfax, M.P. for Kent 1754-63, brother of Lord Fairfax, d. March 3, 1767.

Earl of Hertford, b. Nov. 11, 1684, colonel 15th Foot Oct. 23, 1709, to Feb. 8, 1715, captain and colonel 2nd Troop of Horse Guards Feb. 8, 1715, colonel Royal Horse Guards May 6, 1740, succeeded as 7th Duke of Somerset Dec. 2, 1748, d. Feb. 7, 1750.

Tomkins Wardour, colonel 41st Foot April 1, 1743, to his death Feb. 13, 17.VJ. aged 74.

Arthur Edwards d. June 22, 1743.

Thomas Levett, regimental agent, d. Feb. 15, 1758.

Marc Antoine Saurin was third son of Jean Saurin of Nisme, who settled at Geneva on revocation of Edict of Nantes. M. A. Saurin d. July 11, 1763.

Thomas Johnson, captain Guards, d. February, 1777.

Wm. Gough d. April 16, 1740.

Win. Merchant d. June 3, 1746.

Otwav, lieutenant-colonel in tho Guards, d. July'l, 1762.