When I was a school boy at Canterbury, in the fifties and sixties, my first interest in philology was evoked by Trench on The Study of Words, and by the more elaborate pioneer work, Isaac Taylor’s Words and Places, while oral instruction was afforded by the lectures of Dean Alford and the class teaching of my Headmaster, Mitchinson. All four of these leaders having been clergymen, it is perhaps fitting that, at a considerable distance, both of time and of ability, another cleric should attempt to localize some of their general teaching.

Becoming aware in 1920 that there was no book dealing with the Place Names of Kent, such as has been produced by individuals or small committees in the case of some other counties, twenty in number; finding also by correspondence that McClure, the author of British Place Names in Their Historical Setting, says “Kent is one of the most difficult regions in England to trace its topographical history,” I set to work to read all I could that bore upon the subject. Especially when laid up by an ailment, I read through twenty-six volumes of ArchÆlogia Cantiana, and found therein a productive quarry. Then, to facilitate the future labours of those more competent to deal fully with the subject, I wrote a series of weekly articles in the South Eastern Gazette last winter, which were found of interest, Mr. E. Salter Davies asking me to write something for the Kent Education Gazette to enlist the co-operation of school teachers, and to remind them of the educational benefit to their pupils of a study of local names.

In some parts of England and Wales this study of local place names has been taken up with enthusiasm by teachers and scholars, and in this connexion it should be noted that the names of every lane, house, and field and wood, should be ascertained and recorded, even if no meaning can be found. Names of this kind change, and the old folk who could say why a name was given will not be always with us. “Terriers” and Tithe Maps, which can be consulted, if not borrowed, will give more names than ordinary maps.

To such enquiries we may be stimulated by shame when we know that Kent is one of the counties without a work on its place names, and even more by the fact that Norway has been at work in this direction since 1896—the Church and the State collaborating and a State grant helping in the production of the nineteen volumes already published. So too, in Sweden, a committee was appointed by Royal authority in 1901, and one province has already been dealt with exhaustively. Denmark also from 1910, under the Ministry of Education, and with State grants, thus recognised the linguistic and historico-archÆological importance of such studies.

And yet none of these enlightened and progressive kingdoms have anything like the advantage that England possesses in its Saxon Charters and its Domesday Book. More honour to them, more shame to us!