38
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. JULY 12, 1913.
There is only one advertisement in the paper, and it is inserted by "John Michell, Licensed Physitian and Chyrurgion," living at the Two Blue Balls, King-street, Bristol. He offers to cure a prevalent disease in twenty-four hours, adding:—
"I may be spoken with, in King-street above-said from Six in the Morning til Nine, and from Twelve till Five of the Clock in the Afternoon; or you may Write to me and I will meet you at any Time or Place."
For some weeks last year the precious volume was generously entrusted to my custody. This was on its return from public exhibition in London.
William Bonny was a London printer who had failed in the Metropolis. On 24 April, 1695, the Corporation of Bristol, thinking, after careful consideration of his petition, that a printing house might be "useful in several respects," allowed him admission as a free burgess of Bristol, on condition that he did not compete with the local booksellers, and, in fact, carried on no other business than that of a printer. And so there was soon set up in Bristol the first free press. John Gary, a Bristol merchant, wrote a considerable pamphlet of 178 pages, entitled
"An Essay | on the | State | of | England | in Relation to its | Trade, | Its Poor, and its Taxes | For carrying on the Present War | against France."
And it bears Bonny's imprint, dated "Bristoll Novem. 1695." Copies of this pamphlet are rare, and are esteemed by local collectors because it is the first book printed at a free press in Bristol.
It is surmised from the numbering of the Post-Boy that Bonny started the paper in November, 1702, and thus Bristol had a local newspaper perhaps four years before Norwich. There is no doubt that Bonny took his title from the London Post-Boy, as Mr. Williams suggests. One of the later issues shows that the Corporation relaxed their original condition, for Bonny announces that he has for sale Welsh Prayer Books, Bibles, paper-hangings, music "with the monthly songs," maps, blank ale licences, and blank commissions for private men-of-war. And in 1716 it is recorded that he was frequently supplying the Council House with charcoal.
I believe that the latest known number of the Post-Boy appeared in May, 1712. (I saw the error in the Printing Number of The Times, giving 1706 as the date of the first provincial newspaper, but I was too fully occupied at the time to offer the editor a correction. )
Perhaps I should add that, on the occasion
of its bicentenary last February, the Bristol
Times and Mirror reprinted the contents of
the 1704 Post-Boy in facsimile. Possibly I
might find a copy of that reprint for MR..
WILLIAMS if he cared to have it.
CHARLES WELLS..
134, Cromwell Road, Bristol.
See also 8 S. vi. 25, 154, 234.
JOHN T. PAGE;
" THE STAR," BROAD GREEN, CROYDON: (11 S. vii. 428)." The Star," 59, Broad Green, Was occupied by William Etherington in 1855. See Kelly's ' P.O. Directory ' for that year. J. PARSON..
CHILSTON (11 S. vii. 487). The Walthanr manuscript containing the Chilston treatise^ is in the Library of the British Museum (Lansd. 763). WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS.
COACHING CLUBS (11 S. vii. 470). Sea
- ' Badminton Library " volume on ' Driving,*
chap, xiv., ' Driving Clubs, Old and New.'
WM. H. PEET,.
Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the 1
Public Record Office. Henry III. : 1266-
1272. (Stationery Office. )
THE text of this volume a continuation of the- ' Calendar of Patent Bolls for 1258-66,' published in 1910 has been prepared by Mr. J. G. Black,, with the assistance of Mr. R. F. Isaacson. Like- its predecessor, it may count among the most fascinating and instructive of the Calendars.. Students will know, more or less, what to expect of it. We are still amid the aftermath of the- Barons' War, and the affairs of the " disinherited "' (some of whom, at the beginning of 1267, are~ holding out in the Isle of Ely), of Simon de Montfort's family, and of a large number of the rebel barons are still in process of being settled. Trouble with Flanders is waxing acute, and the consequent complications in the wool-trade are reflected here in many a mandate and licence to merchants of London, or Amiens, or Florence, giving leave to trade in wool on the understanding that they have no dealings with the Flemings. One of the most interesting of the strands of history which may be followed up in these pages is that of the Jews, concerning whom there is a great number and considerable variety of entries.. Another, which maybe illustrated less copiously, but most usefully, is the history of craftsmanship jewel work, architectural work, and the like the occasion for some instances of the first being the necessity Henry was under of pawning his own jewels as well as those which had been assigned for the making of the shrine of St. Edward at Westminster.
A various crowd of figures princes and their households, men who have fallen out with the
