Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/260

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io< h s. v. MARCH 17, im.


G. J. HOLYOAKE : CHARTISTS AND SPECIAL CONSTABLES (10 th S. v. 126, 156, 191). I send the following letter to me from Mr. H. Dale relating to special constables in 1848, which I have Mr. Dale's leave to publish :

" In your letter in ' N. & Q. } in reference to G. J. Holyoake you say that you have often wondered how many of the army of special constables sworn in 1818 in London are now living. I was one of that number, having been sworn at the Mansion House in that year. On the memorable 10th April I was on duty inside the Royal Exchange from 10 o'clock in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, when the late Alderman Musgrove mounted one of the benches and informed us that everything had passed off quietly and our services were no longer required. I had a baton, and was nineteen years old. A question arose as to the length of time the special constables remained as such, but in the City no time was specified, so that those who were sworn in there still, I suppose, remain so.

  • ' There is an old clergyman who resides at

Trebinchin, Breconshire, the Rev. Augustus Browne, who was a student at King's College about the same time as your brother; his brother was a comrade of mine on that memorable day. At the time of his death he was manager of the Sea Claim Department of the Royal Exchange Assurance, I at that time being a junior clerk in that corpora- tion. I have a dim recollection that the Rev. A. Browne was also a special constable."

HENRY TAYLOR.

Birklands, Southport.

I am pretty sure that G. J. Holyoake never lectured under any other than his own name, though he sometimes wrote under the pen- name of " Landor Praed." I have, I think, a nearly complete collection of the journals which Holyoake edited, beginning with The Oracle of Reason in 1842, and ending with The Reasoner ; but in none of these is there any indication that he ever lectured under any other than his real name. Charles Bradlaugh lectured under the name of Iconoclast, and it was under it that he edited The London Investigator and the early volumes of The National Reformer.

B. DOBELL.

" WALKING " CLOTH (10 th S. v. 169). The only picture I remember that has reference to " walking" is that by Dore, of the fulling- mills referred to in the twentieth chapter of

  • Don Quixote.' There is a curious passage

about fulling in * Piers Plowman,' B. xv. 445, on which I have given a lengthy note.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

Is it indisputable that the surname Walker is derived from the fuller's or walker's call- ing ? Probably it is. I have no ample Dutch dictionary at hand, but Bailey's English dic- tionary gives "walker" as from the Dutch "walcher," a fuller; and *A New Pocket Dictionary of English and Dutch ' says that


walken" is the verb to work (a hat). " Walcher is in Domesday Book as a per- sonal name (H. Barber's * British Family Names,' 1894, p 220) ; and Robert Ferguson in his 'Teutonic Name System ' (1864, p. 298) points to the Anglo Saxon name of Wal- chere as that of a bishop of Lindisfarne, and thinks that it is from the simple form ivalch or ivalsh, stranger. However, on p. GO(ibid.) Ferguson says :

" Names derived from handicraft, as a general rule, are of more recent origin, and have been well explained by Mr. Lower, to whose work the reader may be referred for further information respecting them. At the same time I hold to the opinion that a great number of the names apparently so derived are nothing more than accidental coincidences. Such are many ending in er, such as Angler, Carter, Collier, Clothier, Harper, Mariner. Marker, Ringer, Slater, Stoker, Tasker, Turner, Walker, &c., most of which are referred to elsewhere. Nevertheless I will not dispute that in some cases two different origins may obtain for the same name. Thus it is very probable that the common name of Walker is sometimes from Anglo-Saxon wealcere, a fuller."

This reservation may perhaps apply also to Walkern, a Hertfordshire manor four miles from Stevenage. Is this " the place of the stranger" (ivalch and aern or ern) or "the place of the fuller"? Pliny, lib. vii. cap. 56, informs us that one Nicias, the son of Hermias, was the first inventor of the art of fulling, so that there can be no question as to the antiquity of the walker's calling. Wakefield is said to be in Domesday Book Wachefield. Would not this, since Leland says that it was a town in his time that "standith al by clothyng," be the field of the fuller ? And is Walkington in Yorkshire the fuller's or the stranger's town ?

As to an illustration representing a fulling mill, would not one be found in Randle Holme's 'Armory'? The machine was said, in 1819, to resemble, except in what relates to the millstones and hopper, a corn-mill, some such mills even serving for both pur- poses, corn being ground, and cloth fulled, by the motion of the same wheel.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

PENTETJS OR PUNTEUS (10 th S. iv. 189). According to Foster's 'Alumni Oxon., 1500- 1714,' John Puntseus, an Italian, had a licence to practise surgery throughout all England, 16 Nov., 1649, and was a famous physician living at Salisbury. His son Arthur entered at Corpus, Oxford, in 1661 ; and Foster adds a reference to ' Fasti,' ii. 122. W. C. B.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (10 th S. iv. 529). The line quoted, not quite correctly, by J. A. B. appears in 'Mrs. Hauksbee sits out : an Unhistorical Ex-