Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/78

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. v. MARCH, 1919.

A memorandum in the Kensington register records how

" a woman child of the age of one year and a half or thereabouts, being found in her swadlinge clothes, layed at the Ladye Cooper's gate, baptized by the name of Mary Troovie 10th October."

In the register of Perm, Staffordshire, there is the following entry :

" 1750, March 25. Mary Penn, foundling, bapt. This child was found tied up in a cloth, and hung to the ring upon the south door of Penn Church, about 8 o'clock P.M., by William Baker, as he was coming out of the church after the ringing of the curfew bell."

Foundlings left in the parish of St. Lawrence, Old Jewry, invariably had the surname of Lawrence given to them ; in the parish of St. Clement Danes they were all named Clement ; and it appears from the Temple register that between 1728 and 1755 no fewer than 104 foundlings were baptized there, all of whom were surnamed Temple or Templar.

Foundlings were often named at the caprice of the Vestry, and it is hardly necessary to call attention to the amusing account in Crabbe's * The Parish Register ' of the naming by the Vestry of the infant found in their parish. After anxious debate Richard was fixed on as a Christian name, because no one present at the meeting bore that name, and the child was surnamed Monday from the day on which he was found.

MB. SPABKE is referred to ' Parish Registers in England,' by R. E. Chester Waters, Burn's ' History of Parish Registers,' and T. F. Thiselton Dyer's ' Old English Social Life, as told by the Parish Register.' WM. SELF WEEKS.

Westwood, Clitheroe.

In the parish register of St. Mary's Shrewsbury, is the following :

1801. " Francis St. Mary's, 4 ms. h. of ind.* This child was left at the infirmary steps aboul 10 o'clock at night, and was found there by Mr liowlands. It was taken to the h. of ind.* anc there died."

From the parish registers of St. Chad's Shrewsbury :

1705, Dec. 12. " Hanna, an exposed child, lefi upon the fish board, bap."

There are about a dozen entries of an ordinary type. If your corresponden wishes these, I shall be pleased to send them direct. H. T. BEDDOWS.

Public Library, Shrewsbury.

Here is one out of many similar which have come across, as pathetic in its sup- >ressions as that quoted by MB. SPABKE in ts realistic Latinisms. It occurs in the parish register of Inkborrow, Wore., under date July 4, 1665 :

" Henry filius populi buried." Here are three others from St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey : 1584, April 5. " ffryswed a ffondlin," bap. 1605, Mar. 7. " A child ftound in the highway the Grange," bur.

1607, May 21. " A pore child ffound at MIV Liedams gate," bur.

JOHN W. BROWN.

From the Hartland parish register, 1566 : "Petrus cuius filius est, nemo scit, bap. est 23 die Nov."

R. PEABSE CHOPE.

In the register of St. Mary' s-on- the -Hill ,. Chester, is the following entry :

1630. " Elizabeth Godsendus buried 23th day of December " ;

and in the churchwardens' accounts the entry is " a stranger's child."

GEO. W. HASWELL.


 * House of Industry.

HENRY I. : A GLOUCESTER CHARTER. (12 S. iv. 149, 223, 279; v. 16.)

MB. ST. CLAIB BADDELEY laments that " for a considerable period " (" three years," as he informs me) he has been shut out from the delights of ' N. & Q.' His regret should be tempered by the reflection that he had made the long-published " Gloucester charter " his own " two or three years back," which, I may mention in justice to myself, roughly corresponds with the time at which the late Mr. Arthur Madan, brother of the well-known Bodleian Librarian, in- troduced that document to me as the oldest original charter in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester.

We are faced at present by two diffi- culties : the true date of the Gloucester charter, and the true date of the notification of confirmation. In this reply I will deal only with the former, reserving the latter, with the Editor's leave, to another occasion.

MB. BADDELEY thinks that the charter "certainly belongs" to 1127. I do not understand his assertion of the existence of " a more perfect duplicate " in Stubbs's edition of William of Malmesbury's ' Gesta.' The Gloucester charter is the original