Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/115

 12 s. iv. APRIL, 1918.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Thomas Ramshay among them. The follow- ing is their succession from 1745 to the end of that century : John Thomas, 1721-47 ; William Plaskett, 1747-50 ; Robert Wardale, 1750-73 ; Chailes Stoddart, 1773-90 ; Robert- Hair, 1790-92 ; William Richardson, 1792. Some of these perhaps were non-resident, and Thomas Ramshay may have been a curate. The Chancellors during that period were : John Waugh, 1727-65 ; Richard Burn, 1765-85 ; Joseph Dacre Carlyle, 1785-1805. I saspect the last-named was the Chancellor who stood over the mason while he erased the inscription. J. W. FAWCETT.

Consett, co. Durham.

ARRESTING A CORPSE (12 S. iii. 444, 489 ; iv. 28). The late William Andrews in an article in Chambers' s Journal for Sept. 7, 1878, entitled ' Curious Epitaphs,' related a case which occurred in December, 1724.

Another instance of the strange custom of seizing and detaining a body for debt occurs in the parish register of Sparsholt, Berkshire :

" Memorandum. The corpse of John Mathews of Fawler was stopt on the Churchway for debt, Augt. 27th, 1680. And having laine there fower days, was by Justices warrant buryed in the place to prevent annoyances but about sixe weeks after it was by an Order of Sessions taken up -and buryed in the Churchyard by the wife of the deceased."

W. B. H.

TANKARDS WITH MEDALS INSERTED (12 S. iii 445, 483, 520 ; iv. 23, 59, 82). I am able to complete the inscription for K. S., and also, I hope, to expand (or extend) the whole of it. I possess a punch -ladle exactly corresponding to the one described by him at the last reference, except that the coin inserted in the base of my bowl is a George II. sixpence. The obverse of my coin is the head (bewigged) and shoulders of the sovereign in profile to the left, with the

Words GEORGIUS II. DEI GRATIA. The

reverse has the date 1750, and, it would seem, the same legend as K. S.'s half-guinea. After the capitals deciphered on his coin by K. S. follow on my coin S.R.I.A.P. ET K. I have put in stops, after K. S.'s example, but there are none in the inscription on the coin. Extended, I believe, the legend should be read : " Magnae Britannise Francis? ET Htbeniias REX, Fidei Defensor, Bruns- wicensis ET Luneborgensis Dux, Sacri Romani Imperii Archithesaurarius, Princeps et Elector." According to Mr. Wyon (' The Great Seals of England,' p. 119), on the counterseal of George II. 's Great Seal the last three words are " et Princeps Elector " ;

but the last three capitals on the coin are certainly ETE, and my only doubt is whether the P next preceding is not a T from the middle of " Archithesaurarius." On my coin, within this legend, is a cross formed by four shields with the bases inwards, severally bearing the arms of, 1, England impaling Scotland for Great Britain ; 2, France (three fleurs-de-lis) ; 3, Ireland ; 4, party per chevron, Brunswick (two lions passant guardant in pale) impaling Luneburg (seme'e of hearts, a lion rampant), with in base Saxony (a horse current). The English shield is surmounted by a crown, and in the centre, where the bases of the shields come together, is a cross of St. George or humette within a circle from which rays diverge

JOHN R. MAGRATH. Queen's College, Oxford.

The full lettering on the half-guinea referred to in the base of the punch-ladle is the same as on other contemporary coins, and reads, GEORGIUS in. DEI GRATIA M.B.F. ET

H. REX. F.D. B. ET. L.D. fi.B I.A.T. ET. E. The

interpretation is, " Georgius III. Dei gratia Magnae Britanniae, Francire et Hiberniae Rex, Fidei Defensor, Brunsvicerisis et Lunen- burgensis Dux, Sacri Romani Imperii Archi Thesaurarius et Elector."

i F. BRADBURY.

Sheffield.

The National Museum, Dublin, contains a silver punch-ladle made from a five-shilling piece, with a threepenny piece of James II. inserted (late eighteenth century, 296-90).

J. ARDAGH.

[REV. J. HARVEY BLOOM, MB. H. D. ELIIS> MB. J. T. PAGE, MB. ARCHIBALD SPARKS, and MR. W. SELF WEEKS also thanked for replies.]

"WARD -ROOM" (12 S. iii. 250). In ' The Encyclopaedia Britannica ' the term is explained as " the room of the guard."

Falconer's 'Marine Dictionary' (1880) describes ward-room thus :

" In ships of war, a room over the gun-room, where the lieutenants and other principal officers sleep and mess." The gun-room is called

" an apartment on the after-end of the lower gun-deck of a ship of war, partly occupied by the gunner in large ships, but in frigates and small vessels, where it is below, it is used by the lieutenants [sub-lieutenants, midshipmen, and cadets are probably here meant] as a dining- room."

See Mason's ' Encyclopaedia of Ships and Shipping,' s.v. ' Gun-room.'

Hence no doubt the ward-room got its name from the protection it afforded by its