Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/477

 9* s. x. DM. is, loci] NOTES AND QUERIES.

469

WESTMINSTER CHANGES. (9 th S. x. 222, 263, 335.)

THERE is always a considerable amount of difficulty when chronicling changes in a neighbourhood as to what names of residents shall be mentioned and what left out. I did not mention the shop or name of Brook, the ironmonger at the corner of Tothill Street and New Tothill Street, for the reason that the business died when the shop was shut up for pulling down. The original proprietor was not a parish man, for, so far as I can ascertain, he took no part in the work parochial work going on around him; but perhaps, as the subject has cropped up, it may be allowable to mention the following fact for future reference. The business carried on was ostensibly that of an ironmonger, but it was as a general hard ware dealer that the proprietor was best known. To that business he also added that of a dealer in cottons, tapes, and all the odd articles supplied by hawkers, and towards the latter part of the time this was the most extensive trade done. The shop was known by the hawking fraternity far and wide, and even now the place is frequently inquired after. Mr. Brook (which I believe was the correct name) died, and for a time the widow carried on the business. She afterwards married a gentleman of the Hebrew race named Hart, who thereupon took up the management, but it is stated that the success was not so great as it had hitherto been. At that time there were two assistants behind the counter, named Treliving and Smith, who, being desirous of making a start for them- selves, asked Mr. Hart to go in with them. This he declined to do, and, as his wife had died, he gave up, went abroad, and the business passed to the manager, Mr. Hibbert, the proprietor from that time until the shop was recently closed for demolition. Mr. Treliving, who married Miss Besant, a daughter of a cheesemonger in Great Chapel Street, was joined by his fellow-assistant, Mr. Smith, and they commenced as wholesale ironmongers at 100 and 101, Minories, where they are still trading, as may be seen by the ' Post Office Directory.' As MR. HEMS states, there was very little difference in the appear- ance of the shop up to the last, there evi- dently being little or no attempt to go with the times. ' W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY.

02, The Ahnshouses, Rochester Row, S.W. In one of MR. HARLAND-OXLEY'S first quiverfuls of very valuable notes upon this

subject (9 th S. i. 503) he merely says of St. Ermin's Mansions that " they are not yet to be claimed as anything but modern," omitting to observe that they stand on the site of St. Ermin's Hill, with its workhouse. I may be mistaken, as I have only roughly perused his first contributions, but I do not think he mentions the ancient pound-house of the parish, with several adjoining build- ings, which disappeared about the year 1866, to make way for an improvement at the approach to Rochester Row from Grey Coat Place. Also, little if any mention is made of Palmer's Village, through which Victoria Street ploughed its long furrow, and which is described by the writer of an article on 'Westminster' in London for 11 June, 1896, as

'one of the most remarkable spots ever found within a city. Here, surrounded by crowded streets and courts, and narrow, dark lanes, and situated right in the midst of the parish, was a little rural community living a life to itself. Thirty-five years ago if writer, in describing it, said it had still a village green and an old-fashioned

wayside inn, the ' Prince of Orange.' The village

shop is replaced by that conglomeration of business under one roof known as the Army and Navy Stores."

J. HOLDEN MACMlOHAEL.

SIR BALDWIN LEIGHTON, OP WATLES- BOROUGH, co. SALOP (9 th S. x. 368). MR. H. REGINALD LEIGHTON will find the birth at Sunderland of Major-General Baldwyn Leighton's son recorded in the 'Annual Register' and the Gentleman's Magazine for 1805. A sketch with considerable detail of the life of General Sir Baldwyn Leighton (as the father afterwards became) appears on pp. 89 and ^0 of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1829, part i. This account will certainly greatly amplify, and in one particular or perhaps more correct, MR. H. R. LEIGHTON'S notes. It is there said that Sir Baldwyn (then Col. Leighton, with the local rank of Brigadier-General in Portugal and the West Indies only) returned to England in 1802, "and in the following year he was appointed Major-General and placed on the home staff at Sunderland and Newcastle-on- Tyne. In January, 1807, he was placed on the staff at Jersey." This period covers the year 1805, and the account thus gives a reasonable explanation of how Sir Baldwyn's heir came to be born at Sunderland. There is a foot-note on p. 90 relative to some con- fusion in Debrett's latest issue between the Leighton and the Lighten families, but it does not affect Sir Baldwyn; and there are also some important corrections as to place and time of death on pp. 98 and 290 of the