Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/201

 MARCH 10, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Joanna married, firsfc, Col. George Revett, oi the Foot Guards (killed at Malplaquet, 1709) They had three sons and one daughter, Mary Joanna Cutts Revett, who, on the death of her brothers, became sole heiress oi the family estates. Joanna (the mother married, secondly, John Russell, Esq., sor of Sir John Russell, Bart., a widower, anc the estates acquired by John Russell subse- quently came to his issue by his first wife Rebecca, sister of Sir C. Eyre, Knt., of Kew.

The Th urbane arms were, Sable, a griffin passant argent. Crest, a griffin's head coupec argent. See Berry's ' Buckinghamshire Genealogies,' 39 ; Lipscornb's ' History oi Buckinghamshire' (1847), ii. 194; W. Boys's ' History of Sandwich ' (1792), 350.

HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

VENN : MOUNTFORD (9 th S. iv. 497 ; v. 37). Since sending my former reply I have received from a friend the following information :

" ' Burke's Landed Gentry,' ' Westropp of Limerick and Clare.' From an old pedigree on vellum this family appears to have been of note in Yorkshire from 1100. The first member who settled in Ireland was Mountiford Westropp, who was ap- pointed Controller of Customs at Limerick in 1660. He was most probably the son of Ralph Westropp, of Cornborough, and nephew of Ellen Westropp, the daughter of William Westropp, and wife of Sir Francis Osbaldiston, Bart., and Attorney-General of Charles I. in Ireland. Mountiford Westropp died in 1698, having purchased estates in Clare. He was succeeded by his son Mountiford, whose daughter Susannah married John Longfield."

My brother tells me that there is at pre- sent in Dublin a barrister named Mountford Longfield. FRANCESCA.

Lord Montford had an only son, the Hon. Henry Bromley, who was ensign, and after- wards lieutenant and captain, in the Royal Berks Militia. He became major and lieu- teriant-cplonel in the 26th Foot. He married Miss Eliza Watts, of Islington. Surely he became Lord Montford, as he was an only son.

In one of the Berks parishes I am sure I have seen the marriage of one of the Venns.

E. E. COPE.

Sulhamstead Park, Berks.

EDGETT (9 th S. iii. 407 ; iv. 177 ; v. 13). MR. STEVENSON is an old hand at place-names, and it is therefore all the more surprising to find him appending his name to the somewhat rash statements printed at the last reference. To begin with, he argues that h is not dropped in local nomenclature. The truth is that a long list could be compiled of English place- names and surnames which have lost the aspirate. Aiitield, a Liverpool suburb, was,

for example, originally Hanging Field ; Arras, Yorks, was anciently Herghes = Heargas ; and there is little doubt that names like Alston, Ardington, Ardley, Ardwick, Arley, Armsworth, Arlington, Arding, Ogden, Orton, &c, have in many instances, like the pronoun u it," and such common nouns as "ostler," "ability," "arbour," "ermine," "abundance," &c., discarded an initial h; while there is a swarm of names where the aspirate has made the easier drop from the second element. Thus we have Greenalgh, Greenall, Aspull, Aspinall, Alsop, Cassop, Repingale, Birdsall, Upsall, Withnell, Thingoe, Grimsoe, Grimsargh, Antill, &c., all of which have cast out the initial h of the last syllable.

These, again, remind us at once of such foreign examples as Adrianople, Adriatic, the Jllgean Anydro (" waterless "), and Yusova, the Russian iron-making town founded by and called after a Welshman named Hughes ; as well as of such Christian names as Bernard and Anna.

Before I penned the note at the second reference I considered the name Edgett from every reasonable point of view, and I see nothing to alter in the paragraph. I dis- missed, with some reluctance, the idea of connecting the name with " edge " as applied to a land feature, because in English topo- graphy the root-meaning of that term when used uncompounded seems to imply partial if not entire inaccessibility. Thus in the 'H.E.D.,' s.v., 6 and 11, we find the definitions "escarpment terminating a plateau," and "the brink or verge (of a bank or preci- pice)," and a quotation showing that in at least one northern county precipices are called "edges" (compare also the 'Eng. Dial. Diet.,' "a steep hill or hillside"). Here I thought I was treading on dangerous ground. That is why I ventured to say that edge-gate would make "no sense." There certainly does not appear to be much sense in a road over a cliff or precipice. What, for instance, does " Brincliffe Edge " (near Sheffield) mean but the edge of Brincliffe 1 And, moreover, although I could find plenty of Ridgeways, an Edgeway was not discoverable a signifi- cant fact. The compound terms Edgehill and Llirlgehill seem to me to be in a somewhat iifferent category.

MR. STEVENSON favours an alternative deri- vation from an alleged male name Eadgeat, ' written Eddiet in Domesday." Can he refer o any Anglo-Saxon document containing Eadgeat? I think not. It strikes me as peing a rather improbable combination. 1 r ail to see the wisdom of bringing up assumed erbal forms to explain a name which can be,