. v. JAN. 27, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
on one stone, the names of several artillery-
men who had succumbed a year or two later,
so far as I could make out. than those
recorded on the obelisk. Several other stones
showed names in all stages of decipherability,
or rather indecipherability. One was to
Patk. Greenan of H.M. 49th Regiment, who
died in 1858, aged 24. Another half-sunken
stone was to Private Patk. Hanrahan, who
died 2 Nov., 1852 (rest indecipherable).
This part of the ground would seem to have been used for regiments which had succeeded to the 54th, who apparently left in 1851, though on one I could make out the name of ALEX B ELDERTON (the rest was gone), whose name also appears amongst the forty or more privates of the 54th Regiment on the obelisk. The preponderance of what seem to be Irish names in this part of the ground suggests that It may have been reserved for Roman Catholics.
My object in sending these particulars to
- *N. & Q.' is to arouse some interest in this
disused and dilapidated old burial-ground, which contains the remains of so many Eng- lishmen who died on foreign service. Surely the "memory" to which these silent yet most eloquent stones appeal should survive more than half a century !
There still remain old stone barracks on the opposite spur of the "Ridge" fine buildings even in their ruins which con- tained separate buildings for Grenadiers artillery, and line regiments. Outside the main facade of the ruins of one of these- formerly constituting the officers' quarters is still clearly visible the following inscrip tion : "Erected in 1789 by order of His Excell y Lieut.-Gen 1 Mathew."
I will not stop to inquire on whom rests the responsibility of keeping up these memo rials of the Imperial dead, but one migh hope that the present representatives o those "comrades" in the old 54th who erected this monument might do somethinj before the pathetic record of its services ii such a "withering climate" (which soldier and civilians alike have to face in their duty to the Crown) is lost altogether.
But it must be done soon. The last tw years even have laid their hands ver markedly on the place, which is fast becom ing an impenetrable wilderness, overgrow with acacia bushes and prickly cactus. It i perhaps, unfortunate that this should be s just at the time when the British Admiralt has apparently made up its mind to give u the superintendence of the old dockyard a English Harbour, which still belongs to i One cannot regard without regret the su
ender of this fine old shipyard which must
iave cost millions to construct with its still
seful and massive buildings and masonry.
J. S. UDAL. Antigua, W.I.
(To be concluded.)
JOSEPH SPENCE.
IN his pleasant 'Introduction ' to Spence r
Anecdotes' ("The Scott Library," vol. Hi.,
o date), Mr. John Underbill mentions, as
ne of the beautiful traits in this author's
haracter, "the great love which he had
! or his mother." I should like to learn where-
his lad} 7 spent her declining years and when
and where she died. Is there no tablet to-
ler memory, placed in church or churchyard
)y her son 1 Singer, in his ' Life ' of Spence
second edition, 1858), states that her maiden
lame was Mirabella Collier, and from his-
)rief account of her I gather that she was a
laughter of Thomas Collier (who has been,
described as "of Shoe Lane, London,.
>rewer ") by his marriage, at Lawrence
Waltham, Berks, in 1665, with Maria, third
daughter of Sir Thomas Lunsford, Knt, and
ris second wife, Katharine, daughter oi
another knight, Sir Henry Nevill (who died
n 1629), of Billingbear, Berks. See Collec-
anea Top. et Gen., iv. 142 ; Metcalfe's-
Visitation of Berkshire, 1664-6,' p. 66. Sir
Thomas Lunsford was the Royalist colonel
at the news of whose appointment in
December, 1641, to the lieutenancy of the
Tower of London, "all England was
alarmed." See his biography in the 'D.N-B.,'
xxxiv. 281.
Spence's father, the Rev. Joseph Spence, was born at Cambridge, and was the son of yet another Joseph Spence, who, as he is called "coquus," was probably a college- ook. He was educated at St. Paul's School,. London, under Dr. Gale, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted a sizar, when aged sixteen, on 14 July, 1677. See Prof. Mayor's 'Admissions' to that College, pt. ii. p. 65. He graduated B.A. in 1681, and M.A. in 1685, and was a fellow of St. John's from April, 1685, until about 1694. See Baker's ' History ' of the College, pp. 300, 301; and 'Graduati Cantab.' In 1687 he was appointed a minor canon of Winchester Cathedral, and in 1693 also the precentor there. These posts he retained until 1712. Meanwhile he became rector, first of Winnall,. near Winchester, and afterwards, of Alver- stoke (Singer's " Ulverstoke ") ; being insti- tuted, according to two certificates at the Record Office, to Winnall on 26 Sept., 1687^.
