Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/192

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156


NOTES AND QUERIES. [12S.VLAPBH.M,UH>.


suggests that he had some possession in the district at that time. It may be noted that in migrating from Tweeddale to Aberdeen- shire the Gordons carried with them the name of Huntly, a hamlet in Gordon parish, and bestowed it upon the town and parish which now bear it in Strathbogie. It furnished a title to the earldom in 1445 and the marquisate in 1599.

HERBERT MAXWELL. Monreith.

The origin of the name Gordon was fully discussed in ' N. & Q.' for 1902.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

MRS. GORDON, NOVELIST (12 S. vi. 38, 93). In case any librarian follows MR. SPARKE'S suggestion let me say that Margaret Maria Brewster did not marry John Gordon of Pitlurg until 1860, whereas Mrs. Gordon wrote ' The Fortunes of the Falconars ' in 1844. I supposed at one time that Mrs. Gordon was the daughter and biographer of Christopher North and the wife of Sheriff John Thomson Gordon (1815-65), whom she married in 1837. She dedicates one of her books to "Delta " and we know that Moir was a great friend of Wilson, naming his son John after him. But I learn from Chris- topher's grand-daughter that her aunt never wrote novels. J. M. BULLOCH.

37 Bedford Square, W.C.I.

The Mrs. Gordon referred to by MR. ARCHIBALD SPARKE as a daughter of Sir David Brewster appears to be a different person from the lady inquired for. In addition to the novels (1844-54) enumerated ante, p. 38, the British Museum Catalogue credits her with another, ' Three Nights in a Lifetime,' and a volume of poems, ' Man and the animals,' but with nothing more.

Her namesake is catalogued at the British Museum as Brewster, afterwards Gordon, Margaret Maria, who was born about 1820. Her literary activity covered from 1855 to 1896, and included "lives of her father, her husband, and Mr. Grant of Arndilly. Much of her writing was of a didactic and homiletic character, e.g., 'The Word of the World,' ' Sanctification by Faith,' ' Our Daughters,' an account of the Y.W.C.A. Her 'Little Millie and her Four Places,' addressed to young servants, ' The Motherless Boy,' and ' Sunbeams in the Cottage ' are merely short tales, but her ' Lady Elinor Mordaunt ' has more pretension and is described as fiction.

Her mother was the youngest daughter of "Ossiaii Macpherson." I do not find any x ecord of her death. N. W. HILL.


THE THIRD TROOP OF GUARDS IN 1727" (12 S. vi. 111). This was the Third Troop, of Horse Guards, raised in 1660, and dis- banded, for economy, on Dec. 24, 1746.. Dainel Southam must have been a trooper or non-commissioned officer, as I have a list of the officers at this date, and his name is not among them, nor in Dalton's earlier lists. I do not suppose the troopers' names for that period have been preserved, but the Army List for 1761 contains the names of 107 "Superannuated Gent, of 4th Troop of Horse-Guards, at 12Z. 10s. per Ann." (the 3rd and 4th Troops having been disbanded the same day). From Chamberlayne's 'Present State of Great Britain,' 1727, it appears that each of the four Troops of" Horse Guards consisted of " 181 Gentlemen, Officers included," the pay of the " One- Hundred and Fifty-six private Gentlemen, at 4s. each Per Diem " amounting to 31Z. 4s. Cannon's 'Historical Record of the 3rd Light Dragoons ' states that Thomas Browne of Kirkbotham, Yorks, a private in that regiment, recovered its standard after the- cornet carrying it had been wounded, and was himself severely wounded in doing so, for which piece of " gallantry he was pro- moted to the post of a private gentleman in the Life Guards ; an appointment which, at that time, was usually obtained by pur- chase." Between 1740 and 1760 several' troopers of the Horse Guards were amongst the number of non-commissioned officers and were recommended for commissions in the army, for good service or gallantry, but they were, of course, posted to other regiments. W. R. WILLIAMS.

GROSVENOR PLACE (12 S. vi. 109). MR. CHARLES GATTY will, I think, find all the information he can wish for in a most interesting article that was published in The Builder of July 6, 1901, and following weeks, on the subject of the origin and growth of the streets and squares on the south and west of Hyde Park Corner at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. I do not think that he would find much difficulty in procuring a copy although it was published so long ago ALAN STEWART.

Grosvenor Place was originally a row of houses, overlooking Buckingham Palace Gardens, built in 1767 during the Grenville administration. When George III. was adding a portion of the Green Park to the new garden at Buckingham House the fields on the opposite side of the road were