Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/35

 9* a. x. JULY 12, 1902. NOTES AND QUERIES.

tail, and is 2ft. Gin. high. The steadying vertical spindle below is carried up through the legs and into the body exactly 12 in. above the cup. As we know vanes were in use in the time of the Saxons, it would be interesting if the relative authentic ages of other existing examples were given. The quaintest and most numerous wind indi- cators I have ever met with are to be seen in Friesland, N. Holland. HARKY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

WASSAIL-BREAD : WASSAIL-LAND. In the year 1569 the following presentment was made from the parish of Shepherdswell, near Dover, at a visitation of the Archdeacon of Canterbury :

" That Johanna Stoddar, widow, hath in occupy- ing two acres of land called wassell-land, out of which there hath been paid two bushels of wheat yearly, to be made in wassell-bread and given to the poor, as there are divers now alive hath dis- tributed the same, and it is with holden, and there are witnesses examined before Master Denne of the payment thereof."

Master Denne was an official of the Arch- deacon of Canterbury. ARTHUR HUSSEY. Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF A CELEBRATED BANKING FIRM. In the Daily Telegraph of 16 June there appeared a notification that only a few weeks after the regretted death of Mr. Reginald Abel Smith, the senior partner of Messrs. Smith, Payne & Smiths, who died 26 April, they had to record that " now this old-established and celebrated firm of bankers is about to disappear altogether. Messrs. Smith, Payne & Smiths and their country con- nections are to be absorbed by the Union Bank of London, and the latter will thus acquire a valuable business not only in London, but in the provinces as well."

The allied firms of Messrs. Samuel Smith & Co., of Nottingham, Derby, and Newark-on- Trent; Messrs. Samuel Smith Brothers, of Hull ; and Messrs. Smith, Ellison & Co., of Lincoln, will also vanish in the absorption. The firm of Smith, Payne & Smiths will be first found in the ' London Directory : in the year 1759, whenitwasknown as Smith&Payne, the business being carried on near Coleman Street, Lothbury. In 1766 the bank removed to 18, Lombard Street, a house known by the sign of the Hare, and later an additional partner entered the firm, the style being changed to Smith, Payne & Smith. In 1830 a removal was made to 1, Lombard Street, where this noted bank has since remained. But the firm was not originally a London one, as the business was started in Notting- ham by Thomas Smith, a mercer of that

town, in 1688, as documents in the possession of the firm go to prove, the London house not commencing its operations until the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was founded by Abel Smith, his grandson (the father of the first Lord Carrington), in con- junction with Mr. John Payne. This change may be considered of sufficient interest to be preserved in ' N. & Q.'

W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY. C 2, The Almshouses, Rochester Row, S.W.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

LAMB'S ' SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE.' In an unpublished letter of Lamb's, with the postmark 14 July, -1831, I find the following passage :

" How capitally the Frenchman has analysed Satan ! I was hinder'd, or I was about doing the same thing in English, for him to put into French, as I prosified Hood's Midsummer fairies ['The Defeat of Time,' in Hone's 'Table Book']. The garden of cabbage escap'd him [see part ii. stanza i.], he turns it into a garden of pot herbs. So local allusions perish in translation.

Can any one help me to this translation 1 I have tried various likely places, but without success. E. V. LUCAS.

Froghole, Edenbridge, Kent.

HALLEY FAMILY. I should be very pleased to receive information (or the address of any person likely to be able to obtain it, for reasonable compensation, mutually satisfac- tory) pertaining to the origin of the name of Halley Street, Stepney, Mile End, and of Halley Street, Forest Gate, Stratford, Essex ; also as to descendants of Edmund Halley, jun., surgeon in Royal Navy, only son of Dr. Edmond Halley ; will of E. Halley, jun., proved in February, 1740/1, No. 39 Spurway, Prerogative Court of Can- terbury, Somerset House ; will of Dr. E. Halley, proved February, 1741/2, ibid., No. 53 Trenley. EUGENE F. McPiKE.

1, Park Row, Room 500, Chicago, U.S.

GORDON, ADMIRAL IN THE RUSSIAN NAVY. In answering a query on Gordon as a Russian surname W. S. says that a nephew of General Patrick Gordon, of Auchleuchries, became an admiral in the Russian navy. I presume he refers to Admiral Thomas Gordon, Governor of Cronstadt. What is his authority for saying that he was a "nephew"