Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/624

 516

NOTES

[12 S. VII. DEC. 25, 1920.

BYERLEY OF MIDRIGGRAVINGE, DURHAM (12 S. vii. 471). There is a pedigree of the family of Byerley of Midridge Grange in the ' Visitations of Durham ' published by the late Joseph Foster in 1887. Anthony Byerley, who was a Justice of the Peace for the county, and aged 46, in 1666, married Anne Hutton, daughter of Sir Richard Hutton of Goldesborough, Yorks. Anthony was a son of Christopher Byerley of Midridge Grange (d. 1655), by Jane dau. of Sir William St. Andrew of Gotham, Notts ; and a grand- son of Anthony Byerley of Pickhall, Dur- ham (d. 1619) by Anne dau. of John Talbot of Thornton in ye Streete, Yorks.

H. J. B. CLEMENTS.

Killadoon, Celbridge.

Anthony Byerley of Midridge Grange, co. Durham, m. Anne, dau. of Sir Richard Hutton of Goldesborough, Yorks, and had five sons and five daughters. See Foster's 'Durham Visitation Peds.,' pp. 60-1. See also Surtees' 'Hist, of Durham,' iii. 313.

EDWIN Do DBS. Kell's Lane, Low Fell, Gateshead.

THE HERMIT OF HERTFORDSHIRE (12 S. vii. 466). Full particulars of this eccentric person, James Lucas, are given in a pam- phlet of 32 pages, of which a copy (the only one which I have seen) was given to me by CAPT. W. JAGGARD in 1918. Its title is :

" The History of the Hermit of Hertfordshire, containing a full account of his singular mode of life during twenty-five years of seclusion from society. Re-written from The Hertfordshire Exnress, price 4c7. London : E. Marlborough <fc Co., 4 Ave Maria Lane. Hitchin : Paternoster & Hales, Machine Printers. 1874."

It was printed by the last-named firm.

Lucas's parents were Liverpool people, and he inherited from them ample means. Always eccentric, after his mother's death in October, 1849, he became much more so, and allowed their residence, Elmwood House, Redcoat's Green, midway between Hitchin and Stevenage, to go to utter ruin, totally neglecting personal cleanliness and being clad merely in a blanket. To tramps and people of that kind he habitually gave doles of money, of which he always had plenty. He was the subject of an article by Charles Dickens, 'Mr. Mopes the Hermit,' printed in 'Tom Tiddler's Ground,' the Christmas Number of All the Year Rcund, 1861. Soon afterwards an article about him appeared in London Society, from which an illustration entitled ' Portrait of the Hermit Lucas ' is reproduced in the above-men-

tioned panphlet. The pamphlet also i>v^. ' tains two views of the Hermit's house, taken from The Graphic (no date named), in which probably there is some letterpress about him. He died on Apr. 19, 1874, and was buried in Hackney Churchyard on the 25th. According to the pamphlet, he was born ''in London, about the year 1811." ROBERT GLADSTONE. The Athenaeum, Liverpool.

"BOTTLE-SLIDER" (12 S. vii. 471). "A bottle slider " is a coaster. This point can be settled by looking at the illustration before the title-page of the second volume of ' Guy Mannering ' in the 48-volume edition of the Waverley Novels (generally known as the Author's Edition).

In this plate, engraved by James Mitchell after Wm. Kidd, Pleydell is represented sitting in an arm chair, on the supper table* at the inn crowned with a coaster.

L. A. W.

This was not a metal ring, but a stand or holder for a bottle or decanter, intended to be slid along the table ; a coaster. In a recent advertisement were two chased and pierced "decanter sliders " for sale.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE,

I take this to be synonymous with a "coaster," which was a decanter-stand with a wooden, baize-covered base and an, ornamental metal rail above it. It facili- tated the passing round of wines in days when a table cloth was removed for dessert. Now that we dine altogether on the " board "coasters " may not improbably come into vogue again. A few years since, they were made to enclose pincushions or flower vases. One would serve very well for an impromptu crown as in ' Guy Mannering. ' I do not find "coaster" in the 'Concise Oxford Dictionary ' much more of a comfort to- me than its mammoth mother.

ST. SWITHIN.

WILLIAM AND RALPH SHELDON (12 S. vii. 466). Much information with regard to the Sheldon family, and William who set up tapestry weaving at Barcheston (not Weston), will be found in an illustrated article entitled ' The Sheldon Tapestry Maps of Worcestershire,' contributed by John Humphreys, F.S.A., to the Transac- tions of the Birmingham Archaeological Society ^ vol. xliii. for the year 1917. William Sheldon added the manor of Weston to Ids-