318
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. APRIL 15, me.
those who know is Kingsway, and not the
road of the rabbit. I hope I have not
already told the readers of ' N. & Q.' that
an enterprising cafe-keeper, who called his
house after the street, once attempted to
draw customers by displaying a placard
headed by a hare ! ST. SWITHIN.
WARREN HASTINGS (12 S. i. 148, 211). Information respecting the places at which Warren Hastings resided while his trial was pending will be found in ' The Private Life of Warren Hastings, First Governor- General of India,' by Sir Charles Lawson, Kt., published in the latter half of 1895, and perhaps a recapitulation of that information may prove of some interest to readers of 'N. & Q.'
The ship Barrington on which the great man returned home from India left the Hugli River on Feb. 7, 1785, and on June 13, 1785, reached Plymouth, whence starting the afternoon of that day he posted by leisurely stages, sleeping at Exeter, Woodyeates Inn, and Staines, and arriving in London June 16. After paying some official and private visits he set out on the 17th to meet Mrs. Hastings, who was then staying or living at Cheltenham, and they seem to have met at Maidenhead Bridge, where " they staid all night " and returned to London the next day. There is no record as to the place where he then took up his abode, but it is stated that after a visit to Tunbridge Wells he rented a furnished house in St. James's Place for a time, and subse- quently another furnished house in Wimpole Street, whence he made excursions to Cheltenham, Bath, and other places, on one occasion going to Churchill in Oxfordshire, his birthplace, arid to Daylesford in Wor- cestershire, where he endeavoured to per- suade Mr. Knight, the owner of the Bayles- ford estate (grandson of Jacob Knight, who purchased the estate in 1715 from Samuel Hastings, the great-grandfather of Warren Hastings), to part with it for a sum con- siderably in excess of its market value, but failing to achieve his purpose he " bought a very pleasant little estate of 91 Acres in Old Windsor called Beaumont Lodge, a modus agri non ita magnus, hortus ubi, &c., exactly answering Horace's wish."
A week after Warren Hastings landed at Plymouth, the proceedings leading up to the impeachment commenced by a notice given in the House of Commons by Edmund Burke that " he would at a future day make a motion respecting the conduct of a gentleman just returned from India"; and two and a
half years afterwards, viz., on Feb. 13, 1788 r
the memorable trial commenced in West-
minster Hall, whih terminated on April 23 y
1795, in his acquittal of all the sixteen
charges of high crimes and misdemeanours
preferred against him.
In the second year of his trial Warren Hastings sold his estate at Old Windsor for 4,300Z., and he bought for 8,OOOZ., ostensibly on behalf of Mrs. Hastings and in her name, the lease of a large house at the Oxford Road end of Park Lane, overlooking Hyde Park, then known as No. 1 Park Lane, from John, 2nd Viscount Bateman, which that peer had taken in 1773 for ninety-one years from Lord Grosvenor of Eaton. He resided in this house (long known after his occupa- tion as Hastings House) during the re- maining six years of his trial and during the negotiation for the purchase of the Dayles- ford estate. The house had a handsome stone entrance porch. In 1797 he deter- mined to retire altogether to Daylesford, which he had, in 1788 or 1789, prevailed upon Mr. Knight to sell to him for 11,424?., and an annuity of 100Z. a year for himself and his wife secured upon the estate ; and the lease of the house in Park Lane, with the fixtures and effects, was sold to Neil, 3rd Earl of Rosebery, who in 1808 sold it to the llth Duke of Somerset, who left it at his decease in 1 855 to the 1 2th Duke, who bequeathed it to his eldest daughter, Lady Hermione Graham,, by whom or by whose son Sir Richard Graham it was sold in 1890 to Mr. George Murray Smith of Messrs. Smith & Elder, the publishers, in whose family the lease continued until two or three months ago,, when the house, known in recent years as 40 Park Lane, was pulled down to make room for the pile of flats which is being erected on the site between North Row and Oxford Street with frontage in Park Lane.
F. DE H. L.
There was a metal tablet attached to the walls of No. 40 Park Lane, now razed. It is to be hoped another, suitably worded to record the site of the house where Warren Hastings lived, will be erected in due course upon the new building. CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenaeum Club.
REV. JOHN GASKIN (12 S. i. 190). John Gaskin, fifth son of Joseph Gaskin of Sal- ford, Lancashire, gentleman, matriculated from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, Oct. 10, 1827, then aged 21, and graduated B.A. in 1831, proceeding to M.A. in 1835 (Joseph Foster, ' Alumni Oxonienses, 1715-1886,!
