388
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. m. MAY 20, IJKJS.
On 25 March, 1747, during the mayoralty
of William Johnston, his house was broken
into, the city chest in his possession broken
open, and, amongst other things, the civic
ring was stolen therefrom. Our Corporation
Registers contain the following reference
to its subsequent recovery :
" 2nd March, 1751. Ordered that Thomas Vivian, Esq., Deputy Recorder of this City, who is now in London, be wrote to, desiring that he would call upon Thomas Leddiard, Esq., a Justice of the Peace for the City and Liberty of Westminster, and pay him what he the said Thomas Vivian shall think reasonable, on the said Thomas Leddiard deliver- ing up a very large old Gold King, Part of the Antient Regalia of this City, and which had been stolen out of the Dwellinghouse of William John- ston, an Alderman of this City, in the year of his Mayoralty, which Ring was found upon one Neale, brought before the said Justice Leddiard on account of a robbery committed in the County of Surrey."
The ring was recovered by the Deputy- Recorder, but whether he had to pay any- thing to Mr. Leddiard for its restoration I am unable to say, as our Chamberlains' Accounts for the year 1751 are missing, nor do the registers contain any particulars of its recovery or of the circumstances of the dis- covery of the thief.
By kind permission of Sir Richard Nichol- son, I have searched the Records of Quarter Sessions for the City and Liberty of West- minster and the Sessions Books for 1749-51. I found amongst the Indictments, No. 1071, February, 1749, the name of John Neal, the bill against whom was, however, ignored ; and No. 1065, 3 July, 1749, Leakey Neal, who was indicted with others, but found not guilty. In Sessions Book No. 1075, July, 1750, No. 154, Robert Neal was charged with felony, and No. 171, Thomas Neale, with assault ; and in Register 1081, 10 April, 1751, 1 found "Thomas Lediard " mentioned as a J.P. sitting at the Quarter Sessions held that day.
None of these indictments has reference to the theft of a ring, though it is possible that one of the prisoners may have been the person upon whom it was found on arrest. I should be glad if any of the readers of ' N. & Q.' could assist me in completing the history of the mayor's ring by information as to police or magisterial records, or other sources whence I might be able to obtain further particulars of its discovery by Mr. Leddiard, and as to how the Corporation came to learn that it was in his possession. Was any Hue and Cry or other official notice of stolen goods published in those days ? I should be also obliged by any information respecting Mr. Vivian and Mr. Leddiard.
JNO. G. WILLIAMS. Lindum Lodge, Lincoln.
CHESTER PLEA ROLLS. Have the Chester
Plea and Recognizance Rolls been published ?
If so, any reader giving the names of the
editors, the place and dates of publication
will do a service to H. EGAN KENNY.
CHARLES MASON, ROYALIST DIVINE. Can any one tell me where to find the paper* and correspondence of the Rev. Charles Mason, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge? They are not in the possession of that college. What I am particularly in search of are the letters written to C. Mason from the Levant and Egypt by Henry Bard, also of King's College, and afterwards Viscount Bellomont. The date of the correspondence was circa 1632-5. WM. IRVINE.
49, Castelnau, Barnes, S.W.
WHITEHALL MATTED GALLERY. Is it known where this gallery was situated in the palace? Lady Fanshawe, in her ' Memoirs,' speaks of proceeding by it from the Duke of York's lodging in the centre of the west sido of the Privy Garden to the King's Withdrawing Room, which lay more to the north See plan of Whitehall in 1680. Pepys speaks of the king taking twenty turns in it on 1 November, 1663, so that it must have been of some length. It was apparently different from the Stone Gallery, along the west edge of the Privy Garden, as, while that was burnt down in 1691, pictures in the Matted Gallery were, according to p. 385 of Dr. Sheppard's ' Old Palace of Whitehall,' destroyed by the fire of 1698. Dr. Sheppard does not offer any con- jecture as to the position of the Matted Gallery. H. C. FANSHAWE.
107, Jermyn Street.
"PuRDONiUM." This word is, I find, used by surveyors and house agents to indicate a coal scuttle. What is its origin 1 I cannot connect it with a learned derivation, and it looks as if it might be called after some one named Purdon. HIPPOCLIDES.
LINCOLN INVENTORY. Thomas Fulbeck was mayor of the city of Lincoln in 1565. He died during his term of office. An in- ventory of ecclesiastical furniture was com- piled during the time he was mayor, and it was printed in whole or in part in a magazine during the latter years of the eighteenth century, or early in the nineteenth. This I am anxious to see. I naturally thought it was in The Gentleman's Magazine, but after long search have failed to find it, and the like fate has befallen a friend who has made an independent search therein on my behalf. I still, however, think it is somewhere con- cealed in Sylvanus Urban's miscellany, but
