Morborne, Hunts. Two bells:

Stilton, Hunts. Two bells:

Cuthbert Bede, B.A.

At Bedale, in Yorkshire, is a bell weighing by estimation twenty-six hundredweight, which is probably of the same date, or nearly so, as the Dyrham bell. It measures four feet two inches and a half across the lip, and has the following inscription round the crown:

"+ IOU : EGO : CUM : FIAM : CRUCE : CUSTOS : LAUDO : MARIAM : DIGNA : DEI : LAUDE : MATER : DIGNISSIMA : GAUDE;"

the commencement of which I do not understand. There are five smaller bells belonging to the peal at Bedale, and a prayer bell. They bear inscriptions in the following order:

The prayer bell:

The first, or lightest of the peal:

The second:

The third:

The fourth:

The fifth:

The letters P. S., on the second bell, are the initials of Dr. Peter Samwaies, who died April 5, 1693, having been thirty-one years rector of Bedale.

On the fly-leaf of one of the later registers at Hornby, near Bedale, is written the following memorandum:

"Inscription on the third bell at Hornby:

'When I do ring,

God's praises sing;

When I do toll,

Pray heart and soul.'

This bell was given to the parish church of Hornby by the Lord Conyers in the reign of Henry VII., but, being broken, was recast by William Lord D'Arcy and Conyers, the second of the name, 1656."

Patonce.

Charwelton Church, Northants:

Heyford Church, Northants:

With coat of arms of the Morgans on the side.

Floore Church, Northants:

Three coins inserted round the top.

Slapton Church, Northants:

All in Saxon letters. No dates.

Inscription cut on the frame of Slapton bells:

Hellidon Church, Northants:

Dodford Church, Northants:

And five coins round the lip.

Wappenham Church, Northants:

Three coins on lip and bell-founder's arms.

The Sancte bell was recast in 1842, and hangs now in the north window of belfry.

Brackley, St. Peter's Church, Northants:

Dunton Church, Leicestershire:

Leire Church, Leicestershire:

Frolesworth Church, Leicestershire:

J. R. M., M.A.

The legend noted from a bell at Sidmouth (Vol. ix., p. 109.), namely,—

is not an unusual inscription on mediÆval black-letter bells, if I may use the expression. The characters are small. It is on two bells at Teignmouth, and is on one of the bells in this tower:

A correspondent, Mr. W. S. Simpson (Vol. viii., p. 448.), asks the date of the earliest known examples of bells.

Dates on mediÆval bells are, I believe, very rare in England. I have but few notes of any. My impression is that such bells are as old as the towers which contain them, judging from the character of the letter, the wear and tear of the iron work, aye, of the bell itself. Many old bells have been recast, and on such there is often a record of the date of its prototype. For instance, at St. Peter's, Exeter:

At Chester-le-Street:

I will add two or three with dates.

Bruton, Somerset:

At St. Alkmond's, Derby:

At Lympey Stoke, Somerset:

Hexham. Old bells taken down 1742:

Any earlier dates would be acceptable.

On the Continent bells are usually dated. I will extract, from Roccha De Campanis, those at St. Peter's at Rome.

The great bell:

4. "Anno Domini MCCLXXXVIIII. ad honorem Dei, et BeatÆ MariÆ Virginis, et Sancti ThomÆ Apostoli Tempore Fratris Joannis de Leodio Ministri, factum fuit hoc opus de legato quondam Domini Rikardi Domini PapÆ Notarii. Guidottus Pisanus me fecit."

On a small bell:

In the Church of St. John Lateran was a bell with a mutilated inscription; but the date is plain, 1389. The name of Boniface IX. is on it, who was Sum. Pont. in that year.

In the Church of St. MariÆ Majoris were two bells dated anno Dom. 1285; and another 1291.

In the Church of the Jesuits was a bell with this inscription, brought from England:

Roccha, who published his Commentary 1612, says:

"In multis Campanis fit mentio de Anno, in quo facta est Campana, necnon de ipsius EcclesiÆ Rectore, vel optime merito, et CampanÆ artifice, ut ego ipse vidi RomÆ, ubi prÆcipuarum Ecclesiarum, et Basilicarum inscriptiones Campanis incisas perlegi."—P. 55.

So that it would appear that the practice of inscribing dates on bells was usual on the Continent, though for some reason or other it did not generally obtain in England till after the Reformation. I have a Note of another foreign bell or two with an early date.

At Strasburg:

On another:

On a bell called St. D'Esprit:

A bell called the Magistrates:

On another:

I would beg to add a Note of one more early and interesting bell which was at Upsala:

What V. means is rather a puzzle.

I fear I have already extended this reply to a length beyond all fair limit. I may at some future time (if desirable) send you a long roll of legends on mediÆval bells without dates, and others of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some of a devotional character, and others of the style of unseemly and godless epitaphs. But it is to be hoped that in these, as in other like matters, a better taste is beginning to predominate; and it must be a subject of congratulation that

H. T. Ellacombe.

Rectory, Clyst St. George.

In the steeple of Foulden Church, South Greenhoe Hd., Norfolk, are six bells with inscriptions as under:

Goddard Johnson.

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DE BEAUVOIR PEDIGREE.

(Vol. ix., p. 349.)

Your correspondent Mr. Thomas Russell Potter inquires whether any descendants of the De Beauvoirs of Guernsey are still existing. The family was, at one time, so numerous in that island that there are few of the gentry who cannot claim a De Beauvoir among their ancestors; but the name itself became extinct there by the death of Osmond de Beauvoir, Esq., in 1810. Some few years later, the last of a branch of the family settled in England died, leaving a very large property, which was inherited by a Mr. Benyon, who assumed the name of De Beauvoir.

The name is also to be found in the Irish baronetcy; a baronet of the name of Brown having married the daughter and heiress of the Rev. Peter de Beauvoir, the widow I believe of an Admiral M‘Dougal, and thereupon taking up his wife's maiden name.

With respect to the pedigree which Mr. Potter quotes, and of which many copies exist in this island, it is without doubt one of the most impudent forgeries in that way ever perpetrated. From internal evidence, it was drawn up at the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, or at the beginning of the reign of James I., as the compiler speaks of Roger, Earl of Rutland, as being living. This nobleman succeeded to the title in 1588, and died in 1612. The pedigree ends in the Guernsey line with Henry de Beauvoir; whom we may therefore presume to have been still alive, or but recently deceased; and whose great-grandfather, according to the pedigree, was the first of the name in the island. Allowing three generations to a century, this would throw back the arrival of the first of the De Beauvoirs to some part of the sixteenth century; but we have proof that they were settled here long before that time. In an authentic document, preserved among the records of the island, the extent of the crown revenues drawn up by order of Edward III. in 1331, the names of Pierre and Guillaume de Beauvoir are found. Another Pierre de Beauvoir, apparently the great-grandson of the above-mentioned Pierre, was Bailiff of Guernsey from 1470 to 1480. As for the family of Harryes, no such I believe ever existed in Guernsey; but a gentleman of the name of Peter Henry, belonging to a family of very ancient standing in the island, bought property in Salisbury in the year 1551, where the name seems to have been Anglicised to Harrys or Harris; as the name of his son Andrew, who was a jurat of the Royal Court of Guernsey, appears as often on the records of the island in the one form as in the other. One of Peter Henry's or Harris's daughters was married at Salisbury to a Henry de Beauvoir; and I have no doubt this is the marriage with which the pedigree ends. If I am right, the Harryes' pedigree has no more claim to authenticity than the De Beauvoir. If Mr. Potter wishes for farther information, and will communicate with me, I shall be happy to answer his inquiries as far as I am able.

The pedigree itself, however, suggests two or three Queries which I should like to see answered.

The heading is signed Hamlet Sankye or Saukye. Is anything known of such a person?

The pedigree speaks of Sir Robert de Beauveir of Tarwell, Knt., now living. Was there ever a family of the name of De Beauveir, De Beauvoir, or Beaver, of Tarwell, in Nottinghamshire? And if there was, what arms did they bear?

If there was such a family, was it in any way connected with any of the early proprietors of Belvoir Castle?

Is anything known of a family of the name of Harryes or Harris of Orton, and what were their arms?

Edgar MacCulloch.

Guernsey.

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RIGHT OF REFUGE IN THE CHURCH PORCH.

(Vol. ix., p. 325.)

The following entry appears in a Corporation Book of this city, under the year 1662:

"Thomas Corbold, who hath a loathesome disease, have, with his wife and two children, layne in the Porch of St. Peters per Mountegate above one year; it is now ordered by the Court that he be put into some place in the Pest-houses during the pleasure of the Court, untill the Lazar-houses be repaired."

How they were supported during the year does not appear, or if he belonged to the parish; nor is it said that it was considered he gained settlement on the parish by continuing in the porch one year.

I have heard of similar instances under an idea that any person may lodge in a church porch, and are not removable; but I believe it is an erroneous idea.

Goddard Johnson.

In proof of the idea being current among the lower orders, that the church porch is a place of refuge for any houseless parishioners, I beg to state that a poor woman of the adjoining parish of Langford, came the other day to ask whether I, as a magistrate, could render her any assistance, as, in consequence of her husband's father and mother having gone to America, she and her family had become houseless, and were obliged to take up their abode in the church porch.

A. S.

West Tofts Rectory, Brandon, Norfolk.

I know an instance where a person found a temporary, but at the same time an involuntary, home in a church porch. There was a dispute between the parishes of Frodingham and Broughton, co. Lincoln, some twelve months ago, as to the settlement of an old woman. She had been living for some time in, and had become chargeable to the latter parish, but was said to belong to the former. By some means or other the woman's son was induced to convey his mother to the parish of Frodingham, which he did; and as he knew quite well that the overseer of the parish would not receive her at his hands, he adopted the somewhat strange course of leaving her in the church porch, where she remained until evening, when the overseer of Frodingham took her away, fearing that her life might be in danger from exposure to the cold, she being far advanced in years. Until I saw Cheverells' Query, I thought the depository of the old woman in the church porch was, so far as the place of deposit was concerned, more accidental than designed; but after all it may be the remnant of some such custom as that of which he speaks, and I, for one, should be glad to see farther inquiry made into it. To which of J. H. Parker's Parochial Tales does Cheverells allude?

W. E. Howlett.

Kirton-in-Lindsey.

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FERDINAND CHARLES III., DUKE OF PARMA.

(Vol. ix., p. 417.)

The late Duke of Parma was not the first lineal representative of the Stuarts, as stated by E. S. S. W. Victor Emanuel, King of Sardinia, who succeeded in 1802, left by his wife Maria Theresa of Austria four daughters. The eldest of these four, Beatrix, born in 1792, married, in 1812, Francis IV., Duke of Modena, and by him (who died on the 21st of January, 1846) had issue two sons and two daughters. The eldest of these sons, Francis V., the present reigning Duke of Modena, is therefore the person who would be now sitting on the English throne had the Stuarts kept the succession. He has no children, I believe, by his wife Adelgonda of Bavaria; and the next person in succession would therefore be Dorothea, the infant daughter of his deceased brother Victor.

Victor Emanuel's second daughter was Maria Theresa, who married Charles Duke of Parma, as stated by E. S. S. W.

The present Countess of Chambord is Maria Theresa Beatrice-GaËtana, the eldest of the two sisters of Francis V., Duke of Modena. She is therefore wife of the representative of the House of Bourbon, and sister to the representative of the House of Stuart.

S. L. P.

Oxford and Cambridge Club.

Allow me to correct the statement made by your correspondent, that the Duke of Parma represented the Royal House of Stuart. The mother of the late Duke of Parma had an elder sister, Maria Beatrice, who married Francis IV., late Duke of Modena, and upon her death, in 1840, the representation devolved upon her son, Francis V., the present Duke of Modena, who was born in 1819.

P. V.

Allow me to remark on the article of E. S. S. W. (Vol. ix., p. 417.) respecting the House of Stuart, that he is in error in assigning that honour to the late Duke of Parma, and, as a consequence, to his infant son and successor, Robert, now Duke of Parma. The late Duke was undoubtedly a descendant of Charles I. through his mother; but his mother had an elder sister, Beatrice, late Duchess of Modena, whose son, Francis V., now Duke of Modena, born 1st June, 1819, is the unquestionable heir to the House of Stuart, and, as a Jacobite would say, if any such curiosity there be in existence, legitimate King of Great Britain and Ireland.

J. Reynell Wreford.

Bristol.

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PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. Townsend's Wax-paper Process.—At the last meeting of the Photographic Society a paper was read by Mr. Townsend, giving the results of a series of experiments instituted by him in reference to the wax-paper process. One of the great objections hitherto made to this process has been its slowness, as compared with the original calotype process, and its various modifications; and another, that its preparation involved some complexity of manipulation. Mr. Townsend has simplified the process materially, having found that the use of the fluoride and cyanide of potassium, as directed by Le Gray, in no way adds to the efficiency of the process, either in accelerating or otherwise. The iodide and bromide of potassium with free iodine give a paper which produces rapid, sure, and clean results. He discards whey, sugar of milk, grape sugar, &c., hitherto deemed essential, but which his experience shows to be unnecessary. He exhibited three negatives of the same view taken consecutively at eight o'clock in the morning, with the respective exposures of thirty seconds, two and a half minutes, and ten minutes, each of which was good and perfect. The formula he adopts is:

Iodide of potassium	600	grs.
Bromide of potassium, from	150 to 250	"
Re-sublimed iodine	6	"
Distilled water	40	oz.

The waxed papers are wholly immersed in this solution, and left to soak at least two hours, and are then hung to dry in the usual way. The papers are made sensitive by wholly immersing them in aceto-nitrate of silver of the following proportions:

Nitrate of silver	30	grs.
Acetic acid	30	minims.
Distilled water	1	oz.

The papers remaining in this solution not less than eight minutes. They are washed in two waters for eight minutes each, and then blotted off in the ordinary manner. Mr. Townsend states that there is no need to fear leaving the paper in the sensitive bath too long. He has left it in the bath fourteen hours without any injury. The paper thus prepared will keep ten or twelve days; it may be longer, but his experience does not extend beyond that time. With paper thus prepared a portrait was exhibited, taken in fifty-five seconds, in a room with a side light; but it must be added, that in this instance the paper was not washed, but was blotted off immediately on its leaving the sensitive bath, though not used until two hours had elapsed. Mr. Townsend uses for developing a saturated solution of gallic acid with a drachm of aceto-nitrate to every four ounces of it, but he considers that this proportion of aceto-nitrate may be beneficially lessened. He finds that by this process he is certain of success, and is never troubled with that browning over of the paper which so often attends the use of the other methods of preparation. Besides the rapidity of action which he states, there is the farther advantage that a lengthened exposure is not injurious. The proportion of bromide may vary from 150 grs. to 250 grs.; less than 150 is not sufficient to produce a maximum of rapidity, whilst more than 250 adds nothing to the effect.

Photographic Litigation.—Will you allow me, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to suggest to those who take an interest in the collodion process, the desirableness of making a subscription to aid Mr. Henderson in his defence against the proceedings commenced by Mr. Talbot, to restrain him (and through him, no doubt, all others) from taking collodion portraits.^[11]

It does not appear just that one person should bear the whole expense of a defence in which so many are interested; and I have no doubt that if a subscription be set on foot, many photographers will willingly contribute. A subscription, besides its material aid to Mr. Henderson, would also serve to show that public opinion is opposed to such absurd and unjust attempts at monopoly.

It is difficult to imagine how a claim can be established to a right in an invention made many years subsequent to the date of the patent under which the claim is made—not only made by another person, but differing so widely in principle from the patent process. The advertisement in the AthenÆum of Saturday last (June 10) shows plainly that it is intended, if possible, to prevent the production of portraits on collodion by any person not licensed by Mr. Talbot; and the harshness of this proceeding, after the process has been in public use for several years, needs no comment.

H. C. Sands.

30. Spring Gardens, Bradford.

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