472
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. ra JD. M,
But there was published at Stamford on
Thursday, 15 June, an opposition Mercury.
The first evidence of this is a copy of How-
grave's Stamford Mercury, No. 44, for
Thursday, 12 April, 1733. If we assume
the numbering to be correct, the first
publication must have been on 15 June,
1732. The owner was Francis How grave.
The paper continued in his hands until
21 Nov., 1771. His son Thomas Howgrave
printed it the following week. Howgrave' s
Stamford Mercury changed its name to
The Lincoln, Rutland, and Stamford Mercury
in 1784, and five years later the paper
itself claimed only fifty-seven years' exist-
ence, showing that in 1789 it was known
that the paper was founded in 1732. The
Thompson Stamford Mercury is not heard
of after 29 June, 1732 ; there is no trace
of it whatever. But the advertisement of
12 and 19 June, 1732, proves that the
original Stamford Mercury is not Howgrave' s
Stamford Mercury ; and Howgrave' 8 Stamford
Mercury is known to be the present Stam-
ford Mercury, which therefore has a history
of just 181 years. A. ADCOCK.
Northampton.
MB. CHARLES WELLS'S reply is extremely interesting because he states that a number of The Bristol Post-Boy dated 12 Aug., 1704, is in existence, and that it is numbered " 91." Will he kindly say where it is ?
I think The Bristol Post-Boy must, there- fore, be taken to be the oldest provincial newspaper, since the claims of The Worcester Post-Man and of the Stamford Mercury, to date respectively from 1690 and 1695, cannot be substantiated by evidence. The Post-Boy, the Post-Man, and Flying Post all commenced in London in 1695, and pro- vincial papers with these titles were all based upon them. This is quite sufficient to dispose of the claim of The Worcester Post- Man to date from 1690, not to mention the fact that under the " Printing Act " (usually termed, with hopeless inaccuracy, th "Licensing Act") a printing press coulc not have been set up at Worcester in 1690 The Worcester Post-Man was started in 1709.
Apart from this, the " Printing Act ' neither controlled nor even mentionec newspapers or newsbooks. I am quite sure that no country paper would have been per mitted in the "reign of William III. ; and since all the early country papers were Jacobite, it is noticeable that the first yea of Queen Anne marked the appearance o The Bristol Post-Boy.
Hitherto the Gazette, started at Norwich
n 1706, has been the earliest known pro-
'incial paper, Jos. Bliss's Exeter Post-Boy
f 1707, first mentioned in " The Times
Minting Number," being the second. I
hink MR. WELLS is to be congratulated on
laving discovered the first real provincial
>aper the Oxford Metcurius Aulicus of
1643, and Oxford Gazette of 1665, standing
alone in a class apart. J. B. WILLIAMS.
THE ANTECEDENTS OF JOB CHARNOCK
11 S. vii. 389). A full account of Robert
Dharnock, who was a Demy and afterwards
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, will
36 found on reference to notices in Bloxam's
Register of the Demies,' vol. iii. pp. 27-36,
and, with much in addition, in my ' Register
of the Fellows,' vol. iv. pp. 135-48 (1904).
He joined the Church of Rome, and served
n the army of James II. in Ireland as a
Lieutenant in the cavalry. He was executed
on 18 March, 1695/6, for being one of the
conspirators in the plot for the assassination
of William III. A long justification of him-
self in a letter to a friend is printed by me
from one of Carte's MSS. in the Bodleian
Library, ut supra, pp. 137-47.
W. D. MACRAY.
In Chancellor's ' Annals of Fleet Street,' pp. 126 and 127, allusion is made to the conspiracy against the life of William III., when the head and quarters of Sir Wm. Perkins and Sir John Friend were set up on Temple Bar in 1696. Robert Charnock is not named, but he was, as MR. WILMOT CORFIELD asserts, a participator in the same plot as Perkins, Barclay, and Porter.
Evelyn on 10 April, 1696, describes Temple Bar on this occasion as a " dismal sight which many pitied."
WILLIAM MERCER.
For Robert Charnock or Chernock, Vice- President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Jacobite conspirator, see * D.N.B.,' x. 132 ; J. R. Bloxam's ' Magd. Coll. Reg.,' vi. 27 ; and W. D. Macray's ditto, iv. 135. He was son of Robert Chernock of the county of Warwick, and never a priest, as stated in the ' D.N.B.' His execution took place on 18 March, 1695/6. A. R. BAYLEY.
Some years ago I made some investiga- tions about the family of Job Charnock, and came to the conclusion (I cannot re- member on what ground) that he belonged to the Lancashire family of that name. He was described in the inscription on his
