Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/337

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

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��sons, Barnard and Henry Hill. In 1871 Barnard also retired, Henry Hill and the latter had entire control until 1900, when he handed over Hodgson, the active management to his sons, John Edmund and Sidney. Henry Hill Hodgson still takes active interest in all trade matters, and was in 1907 Master of the Stationers' Company. There is an excellent likeness of him in the booklet, as well as an illustration of the room in which the sales are now held. Honourable reference is made to those employed by the firm, a note as to their services bringing the interesting booklet to a close.

ELIM CHAPEL, FETTER LANE.

Fetter Lane and Bream's Buildings in former times, with i 90 7 Oct. 19. their old courts and alleys, were well supplied with churches and E1}m ' chapel chapels, and the fire of Monday, the 2nd of September, 1907, Fetter Lane.' showed that the Baptists must be added to the list. The Baptist Times of September 13th contains an interesting account of "Elim," the old Baptist chapel, gutted in the fire. It was built in 1790 as a General Baptist chapel, but the church worshipping in it was founded some years earlier by the Rev. John Green, a Calvinistic clergyman, one of Whitefield's friends, who died in 1773. Among its ministers was Ebenezer Smith, at one time assistant to Dr. Gifford at Eagle Street Chapel. However, he had to leave Eagle Street because he gave up his belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. For a time he held services in a chapel in Oxford Street. Then he removed to Elim Chapel in Fetter Lane. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the church became extinct, and the chapel passed into the hands of the Methodists. They, too, found it impossible to carry it on successfully, and for some years it had not been used for public worship :

" In clearing away the debris of the fire, a curious tank was dis- Old baptistery covered, which was evidently the old baptistery. It was of brick, found, cemented over, and was a little more than six feet square, with a depth of five feet. There were no steps outside or inside, but at one end was a small arch, leading into a smaller tank, the purpose of which is not clear. The architect suggested that perhaps the officiating minister stood in the smaller tank, or that it was connected with a spring from which the baptistery was filled. At one side some steps had been cut down into the basement of the chapel, but these were evidently a later addition, as, with such an opening, the tank would not have held any water. From the curious shape of the baptistery the architect sup- posed that the candidate must have stood or knelt in the water, the minister simply bending the head so as to secure complete immersion."

POTTICK & SIMPSON.

In ' Book-Prices Current ' for 1907 Mr. Slater records that 1907, NOT. 9. 31,822 lots were disposed of between October 9th, 1906, and July Slater's 27th, 1907, and the amount realized was 133,9332. 19*. For the 'Book-Prices sale of these only four firms of auctioneers were employed : Sotheby's Current. '

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