Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/241

 9* s.x. SEPT. 20,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

233

Abergavenny, in the county of Monmouth. To the same male stock belonged the Jesuit martyr Father Charles Baker (alias David Lewis), one of the victims of Titus Gates ; he was executed at Usk in 1679. The Bakers were the same family as Sitsyllt or Cecil of Alltyrynys, now believed to be represented in the male line by the Marquess of Salisbury. The Baker branch, long extinct, is repre- sented in a female line by Mr. Baker- Gabb, of Abergavenny.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

Some particulars respecting David Augus- tine Baker, an English Benedictine monk, born at Abergavenny in December, 1575, who died of the plague at Gray's Inn, London, on 19 August, 1641, and was buried at St. Andrew's, Holborn, appeared in 7 th S. x. 349, also in the 'Dictionary of National Biography.' EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

"CHESNUT"(9 th S. X . 167). Proper spellings chestnut, from chesten-nut, through L. castanea, from Kaa-Tavov, so called from Kastanea, a town on the east coast of Thessaly at the foot of Mount Pelim. The Greeks called chestnuts Kapva Kao-ravaia i.e., Castanian walnuts. They are called by Theophrastus <5tos /?<A.ai/ot, by Dioscorides and Galen a-apSaviai /3aAai/ot, by Nicander A&raus Kapva, and by Xenophon simply Kapva. Xenophon says the Mesonseci lived entirely on them.

R. S. CHARNOCK, Ph.D., F.S.A.

30, Millman Street, W.C.

ARMS OF ETON AND WINCHESTER COLLEGES (9 th S. ix. 241, 330 j x. 29, 113}. With regard to the last reference I had better quote, perhaps, the following passage from ' A History of New College,' by Messrs. Hastings Rashdall and Robert S. Rait (published by F. E. Robinson, 1901), pp. 1 and 2 :

" William of Wykeham was born at Wickham in Hampshire in the year 1324. He lived just at the time when surnames were beginning to get stereotyped even in non-noble families. ^William took his surname, as was usual with ecclesiastics, from the place of his birth : his father is said to have been called John Longe (Ancient Register of Winchester College). On the other hand, a number of his relations, who may or may not have been actually born at Wykeham, assumed the name of the man Who had founded the fortunes of his family. His parents are said to have been of humble con- dition : William was the first of his family who assumed a coat of arms (Report of Robert G-lover, Somerset Herald, to Lord Burghley, ap. Lowth. p. 11). The well-known motto whidv he added thereto and bequeathed to his college suggests an honourable disclaimer of noble lineage. His father is said to have been a freed villein, and the chevrons

of his arms have been supposed to be an allusion to his trade of carpenter. Nothing is more probable than that William of Wykeham should have been a carpenter's son."

The senior of the two authors only, the Rev. Hastings Rashdall, the well-known historian of mediaeval universities, appears to be re- sponsible for the above lines.

A. R. BAYLEY.

POLYGRAPHIC HALL (9 th S. X. 109). It is

quite correct that the above-named place of amusement occupied the site of the building subsequently known at different times as the Charing Cross, Folly, and Toole's Theatres. Under the first name it was opened on 19 June, 1869, which proceeding is thus described in the 'Era Almanack' for the following year: "June 19th, opening of *a new theatre, entitled the Charing Cross (for- merly the Polygraphic Hall), King William Street, under the management of Messrs. Brad well and Field." The former gentleman appears to have given up, for it is noted that the manage^jal reign of the latter came to an end on 18 September,' 1875. It may be worth recording that the opening pieces were 'Coming of Age, 1 an operetta, words by Dr. J. E. Carpenter, music by Mr. E. L. Hime ; 'Edendale,' a drama, in "three acts, by Mr. C. S. Cheltnam; and 'The Pretty Druidess ; or, the Mother, the Maid, and the Mistletoe Bough,' an extravaganza, by Mr. W. S. Gilbert. In the ' Era Alma- nack ' for 1877 the theatre is first met with as " The Folly (late Charing Cross)," the lessee being Alexander Henderson, husband of Miss Lydia Thompson, it being noted that it was reopened under that name on 16 October, 1876. In the same useful handbook for 1880 the Folly appears with Mr. J. L. Toole as lessee and manager, and as Toole's Theatre it first appears in the ' Era Almanack ' for 1883, where it is advertised under that name. The first play seems to have been 'Auntie/ a farcical piece, in three acts, by H. J. Byron, produced on 13 March, but it may have been staged while the building was yet known by its former name, as I am not able to trace the actual date of the change. It may, perhaps, be well to note that before the Polygraphic Hall came into existence the ground had been occupied by the chapel, &c., of the Fathers of the London Oratory of St. Philip Neri, from somewhere about 1845 to, if my memory serves me, 1856, when they migrated to Brompton, where they have of late years erected a fine Palladian building, the interior of which, Mr. Loftie says, "is imposingly arranged and gorgeous with marbles and gilding." The old chapel in King William