Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/17

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

10 s. xii. JULY 3, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


9


trates,' a sermon on the same text, Titus iii. 1 (1683), is by the British Museum Catalogue ascribed in one place to Jonathan Clapham, and in another page to John Chapman. Replies direct will oblige.

J. HAMBLEY ROWE, M.B. 83, Grange Road, Bradford.

ROBERT NEWMAN, ENGRAVER. I should be very much obliged for any information relating to the above. He was born at Wincanton, Somerset, in 1768, and I believe was of some repute ; but I can find nothing further about him, and his name does not appear in the ordinary books of reference.

W. P. D. S.

BUTTERWORTH : ITS DERIVATION. Will

any of your contributors kindly inform me what is the origin or meaning of this place- name ? Butterworth is a part of the borough of Rochdale, and from it all people of that name more or less claim to spring.

Col. Fishwick in his ' History of Rochdale,' p. 114, gives an ancient spelling or reading of the name as " Botterwort."

Dr. Colby March in his * Rochdale Place- Names ' writes that Butterworth, formerly Botwerth and Botesworth, 1270, is from Norse buthor, the bittern. " Worth " is a fenced field or farm (allied to N. garth, A.-S. yard).

Canon I. Taylor says that in Buttermere, Butterhill, and Buttergill we have the N. Christian name Buthar.

Mr. H. Brierley (who was connected with Rochdale), in a lecture he gave last March at Rochdale, ' On Places and Sur- names,' stated as follows :

" Butterworth was absolutely allied to Roch- dale. He never knew any one of that name anywhere else who did not claim relationship with Rochdale. In the Peninsular War the soldiers of that name from Lancashire used to say, 'We're all Johnny Butterworth's lads.' Butterworth had nothing to do with ' butter.' It was often spelt Bot or Bedworth, and in Cheshire it was Bud ; originally it was * Bodder,' meaning a messenger."

In support of Mr. Brierley's statement I find that Ferguson in his ' Surnames as a Science,' at p. 46, gives " Bod, Bud," as " envoy," and includes in this section O.G. Botthar ; Botterus, Domesday ; Eng. Butter, Buttery.

Butterton, a village in Staffordshire on the borders of Derbyshire, may be allied with Butterworth. W. H. VAUGHAN.

BENJAMIN HANBURY'S LIBRARY. I should be glad of any information which might help me to find what became of the library of Benjamin Hanbury, the Nonconformist


historian, for thirty years Treasurer of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Mr. Hanbury died at 16, Gloucester Villas, Brixton, in 1864, leaving all his property to his only daughter, Mary Ann. The latter was living at Brixton in 1868, but not in 1870. I cannot trace when she died, nor what became of her father's books. Are any relatives now living ? W. J. C.

" VOLKSBUCHER. HERATJSGEGEBEN VON

G. O. MARBUCH.' ' I have a copy of this very interesting publication (Nos. 1-34, 1838-42), bound in four volumes. I should like to learn whether or not this is a complete set. Perhaps some German scholar among your readers can give me the desired information. Included in the collection are many old-time histories and stories, such as ' The Life and Death of Dr. Faust,' a metrical version of ' Reynard the Fox,' some Arthurian tales, &c. W. NIXON.

Byker, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

ASTRONOMY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Where can an account of the astronomical knowledge possessed by the building guilds and monks of the Middle Ages be obtained, or where may references to such knowledge be found ? AGRI.

" BRANNE AND WATER " : BREAD AND WATER. In the villages near when I was a child it was a rare event for any one to be taken to the " Bastile," as the workhouse was then called by every one. It was a general opinion, too, that often they were put on a " bread-and-water " diet ; why, however, none seemed to know. Is there any early mention of bread and water as a diet for poor persons, other than prisoners ? In ' The Old Spelling Shakespeare,' ' Love s Labour 's Lost ' (Chatto & Windus, 1907), we read : " Ferdinand : ' Sir, I will prononc your sentence : you shall fast a weeke, with Branne and Water.' ' : On bran and water, life would be more intolerable than on bread and water. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

CAPT. GEORGE FARMER. (See 6 S. ii. 467, 522 ; iii. 237 ; 7 S. iv. 409, 473, 537 ; vii. 158 : 8 S. vi. 365 ; ix. 398.) The subject of the portraits of Capt. Farmer and the engravings of the well-known naval engage- ment which he fought have been dealt with at the above references, but I have recently acquired two further pictures of the engage- ment about which I should be glad of some further information.

1. This is a coloured lithograph of the action, and is entitled ' Combat entre la