13 S. II. JULY 29, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
87
RATCLIFF CROSS RESTORATION. It
is not yet generally known that, as a
first step towards the restoration of the
ancient Ratcliff Cross (a short distance in
the same hamlet to the south of the Mother
Church of St. Dunstan's, Stepney, the
" Westminster Abbey " of the seamen of
the Port), the Records Committee of the
London County Council have caused to be
prepared a striking and beautiful design of
a Tudor vessel in full sail and a suitable
dedication (the composition of the late Sir
Laurence Gomme, who took a great interest
in the project) to Martin Frobisher, William
Borough, and a host of other Stepney
mariner-adventurers who sailed away from
Ratcliff Cross Stairs as pioneers of English
dominance upon the ocean. This design
has been placed in the vestibule of the
County Hall at Spring Gardens ; and, when
peace comes again and the London County
Council resumes its eminently useful work
of reminding citizens of Great London that
theirs is no mean city, but is full East no
less than West of memories of which they
should be proud, there will be placed on the
abutment of the Ratcliff entrance to the
Rotherhithe Tunnel (which is exactly at
the site of the ancient Ratcliff Cross) a fine
bronze memorial plaque some 6 ft. square,
reproducing the design above mentioned,
for the honour of the Old Stepney Manor
and the emulation of London youth.
Not merely was Ratcliff probably the earliest site for Thames shipbuilding and for homing the various craftsmen and artificers, and the many humbler workers connected with subsidiary trades ; not merely was Ratcliff Cross Stairs the con- venient and customary place for ceremonial leave-taking of the Tudor pioneers of oversea adventure and trade ; not merely was it for generations the busiest landing-place where wherrymen plied for hire upon the safest, the easiest, the quietest, and otherwise the most convenient highway of Old London the Thames. It was a common place of residence or lodging of the gentlemen- adventurers, officers, and seamen in the service of the companies and associations ("interloping" or otherwise) taking the English flag, and later the Union Jack, to the remotest parts of the globe. The first fleets or squadrons of the East India Company ^re set down frequently as having " sailed from Woolwich," from Blackwall," " from Gravesend," &c. ; but no matter where the barques awaited their complements of agents, officers, and men, all voyagers alike customarily assembled at Ratcliff Cross
and the immediately adjacent Stairs, and
were rowed or sailed therefrom to the vessels
astream in the Lower Reaches of the
Thames. The first practice of the Tudor
gentlemen-adventurers and " Armada men,"
of getting aboard off Ratcliff, gradually
declined ; for sailing out of the winding
Thames, dependent solely on the varying
winds and tides, was frequently a dreary
work of days and sometimes of weeks time
that could be more pleasantly occupied
ashore. For the same reason the ship-
wrights' centre of government was in
Butcher Row, within a bo' sun's call of
Ratcliff Cross ; and close by the Watermen's
Company allotted the privileges, and arbi-
trated the claims, customs, and courses, of
those turbulent river-workers below Bridge,
and regularly recruited crews not only for the
first King's service in the infant Navy, but
for private and associated adventurers.
And here also, as we know from the ' Diary '
of Samuel Pepys, the Masters and Captains
of the Trinity Brotherhood at their House
in Stepney Churchyard watched, warded,
dwelt, and were buried when England's great
day upon the Seven Seas was dawning.
Me.
" OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS." Many a note for many a year has appeared in successive volumes of ' N. & Q.' concerning this phrase. The latest example of belief in its underlying idea is given in the following Exchange Telegraph Company's message from Copenhagen, published in the English newspapers on June 11 :
" The crew of the Danish steamer N. G. Peter- sen, which has just arrived from England, say that for more than four hours they sailed through countless life-belts and bits of wreckage. For an hour the steamer sailed through a patch of the sea on which the oil was so thick that the swell had been reduced to a dead calm."
A. F. R.
PERPETUATION OF PRINTED ERRORS. Their vitality is proverbial, but the following is, I think, " the record." In the sixth edition (1862) of a law book, since 1908 in its thirteenth edition, occur, in the report of a trial, the words : " The prisoner, eleven days before his death, signed a statement" not only a mistake for " the deceased," but absurd on the face of it, for prisoners in the dock are not dead. Yet that ridiculous blunder has escaped at least nine editors, including a very great judge, and is still there. (I am pretty sure, too, that it dates from the edition of 1861, which would be a run of about fifty years. It will not be seen in the fourteenth edition.)
