Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/237

 12 s. vii. SEPT. 4, 1920] NOTES AND QUERIES.

193

PARR'S BANK (12 S. vii. 149). The bank was in existence before the year 1788. There are in the bank's possession paid drafts of that year drawn by Joseph Parr, Thomas Lyon and Kerfoot on their London agents, Darrien & Co. In 1821 the name of the bank was Parr, Lyon and Greenall, and continued so until the end of the fifties or sixties, the London agents being Currie & Co.

In 1864 the bank was known as Parr & Co., Old Bank, Warrington, with two branches, St. Helens and Runcorn, and the London agents Glyn, Mills, Currie & Co. The part- ners at that time were Thomas Parr, Richard Assheton Cross, James Fenton Greenall and Joseph Charlton Parr.

Col. Greenall, of the family of bankers, was colonel of the Warrington Volunteers attached to the South Lancashire regiment, and lived at Grappenhall. He subsequently lived at Lingholm, Keswick.

Richard Assheton Cross became a partner in the firm through marriage into the Lyon family, and lived at Hill Cliff, Warrington. He was formerly a barrister and M.P. for Preston. In 1868 he contested the S.W. Lancashire division in opposition to W. E. Gladstone and was returned. He held office in the Conservative Government as Home Secretary and afterwards as Secretary for India. Subsequently, he became Lord Vis- count Cross and lived at Eccle Riggs, Broughton-in-Furness.

In 1865 the bank was converted into a Limited Company with Mr. Cross, as he then was, as its first Chairman. The late Shallcross Fitzherbert Widdrington, of Felton Hall, Northumberland, was one of the .first Directors. Lord Playfair was at one time Chairman of the Bank.

After the conversion into a Limited Company it was known as Parr's Banking Co., Ltd. The Bank has always held a high and influential position, especially in Lan- cashire and Cheshire, where it was often referred to as Parr's Bank of England. At various times amalgamations took place with Dixon's of Chester ; Woodcock, Sons & Eckersley, of Wigan ; Thomas Firth & Son of Northwich ; The National Bank of Liver- pool ; The Consolidated Bank of Man- chester, and Stuckey's Banking Company, with its numerous branches in the West of England. After the amalgamation with the Alliance Bank in London the name was altered to Parr's Banking Company and the Alliance Bank. This continued for a short

period only and (until the recent amalga- mation with the London, County and West- minster Bank), the Bank was afterwards known as Parr's Bank. _ ;; . WILLIAM SILCOCK.

^ "SEEVIER" (12 S. vii. 109, 173). "Sievier" is~ a sieve-maker. Quotations in 'N.E.D.': from c. 1440 to 1894. J. T. F.

Winterton, Don caster.

CULCHETH (12 S. vii. 71, 172) Reynolds's geological map shows chalk within ten miles- of Chelsea on the south, and there are several chalk-hythes (though not so called) on the Humber now. J. T. F.

Winterton, Doncaster.

STEUBEN'S 'DEATH OF NAPOLEON ' (12 S. vii. 169). According to Ottley (1866),. Steuben-'s ' Death of Napoleon ' was executed in 1830. I recall seeing a similarly com- posed oil-painting in the window of a West End shop several years ago. An engraving and key, presumably of the same issue as SIR LEES KNOWLES'S, are reproduced in ' Napoleon in Exile : St. Helena,' by Norwood Young (London, Stanley Paul, 1915). The subject, engraved by Henry Wolf, is also given in the fourth volume of Sloane's ' Life of Napoleon Bonaparte ' (New York, Century Co., 1906).

A curious French print, obviously in- spired by Steuben's work, although reversed in the engraving and containing only seven figures instead of over twenty, is reproduced in an excellent picture-book on Napoleon, published by Hachette & Cie (Paris, n.d.). The letterpress concerning this ' Mort de Napoleon a Lille [sic] Sainte-Helene, Le 5 Mai, 1821,' may be quoted in lieu of further description :

" Dans cette estampe populaire, oti tons lea moindres details sont d'une inexactitude eriante, . Napoleon est entour6 du mar^chal Bertrand, de Madame Bertrand, et des quatre conamissaires etrangers charges de le surveiller."

To the details of Steuben's life known by SIR LEES KNOWLES may be added the following : the son of a lieutenant -colonel in the Russian army, Charles Steuben, after studying at the St. Petersburg academy, went to Paris, where he became a pupil of Gerard, Robert Lefevre, and Prud'hon. First brought into the public eye by his ' Peter the Great on the Lake of Ladoga during a tempest,' he subsequently attained the cross of the Legion of Honour and a Barony. He revisited Russia during his declining years, but returned to Paris where-