302
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 . v. NOV., 1919.
" OLD LADY OF THREADNEEDLE STREET "
(12 S. v. 238). The genesis of the applica-
tion of this name to the Bank of England
was discussed in ' N. & Q.' (5 S. ii. 229, 291),
1874. For the benefit of those who have not
access to those references I may quote from
a letter from Mr. William Platt of the
'Conservative Club on the subject:
" A vulgar name given to the directors of the Bank of England by William Cobbett, proprietor of The Political fieyister, because they endeavoured, with their financial boom, to stem the Atlantic waves of national progres. This figure of speech was founded upon an anecdote introduced by the Rev. Sydney Smith in an address upon the Reform Bill delivered at Taunt/on on or about the llth of October, 1831."
Sydney Smith's story too long to quote described the fruitless efforts of a Mrs. Partington to repulse the Atlantic waves with a mop on the occasion of a flood at Sidmouth. WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
"A silver curl-paper that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever-beautiful Old Lady of Threadneedle Street [a bank note]" (Dickens's 'Dr. Marigold'). Brewer, in his ' Phrase and Fable,' says Thread- needle may be a corruption of Thryddanen or Thryddenal Street , third street from Chepesyde ; or Thrigneedle (three needle street), from the three needles which the Needlemakers' Company bore in their arms. It begins from the Mansion House and therefore the Bank stands in it. M.A.
EMERSON'S 'ENGLISH TRAITS' (12 S. v. 234, 275)..
11. These are nicknames given in America to the inhabitants of the States of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin respectively. Hoosier is said by some to be a corruption of a slang term, husher, which meant a bully ; by others as being due to the curiosity of the early settlers in asking newcomers the question, " Who you, or they, are," and where they come from. For familiar names given to the various American States see 'The New International Encyclopaedia,' s.v.
- States, Popular names of.'
N. W. HILL.
19. See Sir N. W. Wraxall's ' Historical Memoirs,' part i., ed. 1904, p. 190 : .
"His [Rodney's] person was more elegant than seemed to become his rough profession. There was even something that approached to delicacy and effeminacy in his figure : but no man manifested a more temperate and steady courage in Action. I had the honour to live in great personal intimacy with him, and have often heard him declare that superiority to fear was not in him the physical effect
of constitution ; on the contrary, no man being
more sensible by nature to that passion than him-
self : but that he surmounted it from the considera-
tions of honor and public duty."
This is clearly Emerson's source.
EDWARD BENSLY. Oudle Cottage, Much Hadham, Herts.
ASTERTION FLOWERS (12 S. v. 267). i think that there need be no doubt as to the editor's suggestion of " nasturtium." Two entirely different plants are so called : (1) water-cress (Nasturtium officinale) and allied species ; (2) the garden nasturtium with showy yellow flowers ( Tropceolum majus), called by Parkinson Nasturtium indicum or Indian cress, and he speaks of the leaves being used instead of ordinary cresses because the taste is somewhat sharp and agreeing thereto. The 'N.E.D.' has a quotation from Mrs. Glasse, ' Cookery,' vi. 98 : "A few nasturtium flowers stuck here and there look pretty." The form " assertion " is due to loss of initial n, as in "apron," originally "naperon." and the substitution of the common English -on for the Latin -urn. J. T. F.
In working-class districts of Bristol the nasturtium is frequently referred to as astertion or stertion. WM. SANIGAR.
BLUECOAT SCHOOLS (12 S. v. 126, 158, 218). There was, thirty years ago, a Bluecoat school at Ipswich. Its original title was the Charity Schools of Greycoat Boys and Bluecoat Girls, but the costume had been changed, and the scholars were known as " Bluecoat boys." They wore a quaint costume consisting of a swallow- tailed cutaway coat of dark blue, with white metal buttons, blue knee breeches, with white wool stockings, shoes, and tall hats, like a plebeian form of the Eton " topper." The Bluecoat girls, I think, wore dark blue dresses, with tippets, and close-fitting bonnets, but I am not quite certain of this. The charity was established in 1709 and was confined to the children of bona fide members of the Church of England.
R. S. PEKGELLY.
12 Poynders Road, Clapham Park.
BRASSEY (BRACEY) FAMILY (12 S. ii. 269, 333, 378 ; iii. 54, 255). Musgrave's ' Obit.' gives : Nath. Brassey, banker, Lombard Street, May, 1737 ; Nath. Brassey, banker, Sept. 29, 1765 ; Mr. Nath. Brassey, shop- factor at Reading (about June), 1767 ; Nath. Brassey, junior, son of the banker, Lombard Street, Sept. 14, 1782. Mrs. Brassey, in Fenchurch Street, Jan. 7, 1767 ;
