Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/87

 12 S. II. JULY 29, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

81

LONDON, SATI'RDAY, JULY S'J, 1916.

CON TENTS.- No. 31.

WOTES: The First English Provincial Newspaper, 81 Sholoum Aleichem: his Will and Epitaph, 83 An English Army List of 1740, 84 Ratcliff Cross Restoration " Oil on troubled waters "Perpetuation of Errors, 87 Arms of Harrow School Maximilianus Transylvanus,

sa.

QUERIES : Thomas Hussey, M.P. for Whitchurch, 88 Common Garden=Covent Garden Sir William Ogle- House and Garden Superstitions" Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang" "Comaunde" Col. Charles Lennox, 89 St. Peter as the Gate-Keeper of Heaven- Churchwardens and their Wands Holmes Family, co. Limerick First Illustrated English Novel Sir Edward Lutwyche, Justice of the Common Pleas Brass Plate in Newland Church, Gloucestershire Peas Pottage Postal Charges in 1847, 90 John Mundy, 91.

(REPLIES: -The City Coroner and Treasure-Trove, 91 The King's Own Scottish Borderers, 92 St. George's, JBloomsbury Mews or Mewys Family, 93 Coverlo Sheffner : Hudson : Lady Sophia Sydney : Sir William Cunningham, 94 The "Fly": the " Midge "Colours of Badge of the Earls of Warwick, 95 Peat and Moss : Healing Properties William IIL's Motto 'The Man with the Hoe,' 96 ' Northanger Abbey ' : " Horrid " Romances, 97 Wellington at Brighton and Rottingdean Cleopatra and the Pearl A Lost Life of Hugh Peters, 98 Henley, Herts The Side-Saddle, 99.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' The Place-Names of Durham '

The Quarterly Review." Notices to Correspondents.

THE FIRST ENGLISH PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER.

WHICH provincial town was the first to possess a newspaper has been the subject of much controversy. Two present- day claimants to the honour may be ruled out of the discussion altogether. These are Ber- row's Worcester Journal, which claims to have commenced in 1690, but which did not see the light until 1709 (see the present Avriter's articles at 11 S. x. 21 and 46), and The Lincoln, Rutland, and Stamford Mercury, claiming to have been founded in 1695, but really start ing in the middle of the eighteenth century, an earlier newspaper of the same name, with which it had no connexion, having commenced in 1713. (See MR. ADCOCK'S article at 11 S. vii. 471 and MR. Jos. PHILLIPS'S article at 5 S. ix. 215.)

The learned articles on ' English Pro- vincial Presses,' by Mr. W. H. Allnutt, printed in Bibliographica, vol. ii. (1896), do not seem to be well known, and must be

taken into consideration by future writers on this subject. In the third of these articles (Bibliographica, ii. 294-6) there is a sub- section dealing with the ' First Provincial Newspaper.'

Mr. Allnutt summarily dismisses the claims of the Worcester and Stamford papers, and then draws attention to a letter by Dr. Thos. Tanner, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph and a celebrated antiquary. The letter is dated Aug. 1, 1706, is addressed to Browne Willis, the Bucks antiquary, and is to be found among the Bodleian MSS. Mr. Allnutt' s extract from the letter and com- ments upon it should serve as the starting- point of the history of the subject. Dr. Tanner writes :

"'The Norwich newspapers are the principal support of our poor printer here, by which, with the advertisements, he clears near 50*. every week, selling vast numbers to the country people. As far as I can learn this Burgess first began here the printing news out of London : since I have seen the Bristol Pontman, and I am told they print also a weekly paper at Exeter.'

" Among Bagford's papers in the British Museum (Harl. 5958.145) is No. 348 of the ' Norwich Post, to be published weekly. Containing An Account of the most remarkable transactions, both foreign and Domestick. From Saturday, April 24, to Saturday, May 1, 1708. Norwich. Printed by E. Surges, near the Red- Well. 1708.'

"The printer of this was Elizabeth Burges, widow ot Francis, who had died in 1706, at the early age of thirty. A computation of weekly numbers back from this No. 348, gives the date of No. 1 as early as September, 1701.'

" Bishop Tanner, therefore, is undoubtedly right, for if Worcester had started a newspaper in 1690 or Stamford in 1695, the bishop's remark As far as I can learn.' showing that he had made inquiry, must have brought some reply, supposing he was mistaken. The Brintol Post-Boy (not Postman, a pardonable error) was started by William Bonny in 1702."

I have made a few notes on the Norwich and Exeter papers, but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that only local antiquaries can solve the questions they suggest.

NORWICH.

Francis Burges' s ' History of Printing ' was published at Norwich in 1701. There is a reprint of this in the ' Harleian Mis- cellany, vol. iii. p. 154, but I have beep unable to trace the original. As a history of printing Surges' s tract is of no value, but I have ascertained thet the Harleian reprint has omitted the most important parts of the tract, viz. : Burges's Intro- duction and Conclusion. Part of the omitted portions is set out at length in ' A General History of the County of Norfolk ' (ii. pp. 1286-7), published in 1829 by Stacy