Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/189

 12 S. VI. APRIL 24, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

BLACKWELL HALL FACTOR (12 S. v. 266, 306). A Blackwell Hall Factor was a person holding a " rest," or stand, in Blackwell Hall, entitling him to act as an agent for the woollen manufacturers. The Hall was situated on the eastern side of Guildhall Yard, and the western side of Basinghall Street close to the present Wool Exchange and was the warehouse and market place for the storage and sale of all sorts of woollen fabrics. Blackwell Hall was established as the common market for woollen goods from all parts of the kingdom by an ordinance of 21st Richard II., and this ordinance was confirmed by an Act of Common Council, Aug. 8, 1516, with the addition that Black- well Hall was the only market for such woollen cloths, and that none were to be sold in London unless the said cloths were first brought to the Hall and there bought and sold, heavy penalties being enacted against any infringement.

F. A. RUSSELL.

116 Arran Road, Catford, S.E.6.

THE REV. AARON BAKER (7 S. xii. 407 ; 12 S. vi. 75, 139). Aaron Baker (4) men- tioned at ante, p. 75, who was baptized July 9, 1711, entered Winchester College from Oxford in 1724 and was superannuated in 1729 (Kirby, ' Winchester Scholars,' p. 232.) JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

GRAFTON. OXON (12 S. v. 320; vi. 51). The second part of the query has not been answered. My grandfather's great-grand- father John Wainewright married (appar- ently about the year 1718) Mary, only daughter of Richard Abell, and Elizabeth (nee Marner) his wife. The manor of Grafton descended to Mary Wainewright on the death of her parents. John Waine- wright died Oct. 8, 1760, and his son Robert succeeded to the manor. Robert died Feb. 3, 1800, and his eldest son Robert succeeded. This Robert died unmarried July 18, 1841, and left the manor to his brother Arnold, who held a Court Leet at the Manor House in 1852. I do not know when the manor was sold, but I believe that it now belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, and presumably they hold all the title-deeds. Arnold Waine- wright died Dec. 8, 1855. John andj the two Roberts were all sworn clerks in the Six Clerks' Office in the High Court of Chancery.

The manor of Grafton is about two miles south-east of Langford, Oxfordshire.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

SIR HENRY GARY OF COCKINGTON, DEVOK (12 S. vi. 89). Information about Sir Henry Gary after the Restoration is obtainable from the Calendars of State Papers (Domestic), In 1663/4 he was writing from Exeter, and' before Sept. 14, 1666, he was dead, leaving a widow, Martha. M.

SLANG TERMS (12 S. v. 294). As the writer of ' Letters from England ' was Robert Southey, there was at least no " Spanish - imagination " in his statements.

R. S. B.

THE HAWKHURST GANG (12 S. vi. 67). A picturesque account of this lawless band of " Free Traders," among whose exploits were the abduction of a Customs House officer from Shoreham in 1741 and the murder of William Galley, another Customs officer, in 1748, will be found in Mr. C. G. Harper's entertaining book, ' The Smugglers.'

There is also a lengthy account of the gang in

" Reminiscences of Smugglers and Smuggling being the substance of a Lecture delivered at the Music Hall, Hastings. By John Banks. London [For the Author] John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75 Piccadilly," n.d.

The murder of Galley led to the gang's undoing and twenty-two of them were hanged together in 1749.

LEONARD J. HODSON.

Robertsbridge, Sussex.

This band of smugglers carried on business in Kent and Sussex in the middle of the eighteenth century. Their leader was Capt. Kingsmill, but there is little doubt that they were financed by sleeping partners who were persons of good social position, and one of these may have been the Arthur Gray who built the mansion at Seacock's Heath. The Hawkhurst Gang were insolent and domineer- ing and so terrorized the inhabitants of the Weald that in self-defence they organized a volunteer force called the Goudhurst Band of Militia. In 1746 a pitched battle took place between the militia and the smugglers, in which three of the latter were killed. In 1747 the Hawkhurst Gang broke into the Poole Custom House and recaptured 2 tons of tea and 39 casks of spirits, the cargo of a smuggling boat which had been seized by the Revenue Authorities. In the course of this affair two persons were murdered by the - smugglers. Kingsmill and his lieutenant Farrell were arrested, through the treachery of a comrade, found guilty and executed at Newgate. Their bodies were gibbeted at Horsmonden and Goudhurst respectively,.