Notes and Queries, Vol. III, Number 83, May 31, 1851 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

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VOL. III.—NO. 83. SATURDAY, MAY 31. 1851. Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4 d.
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Although disappointed in the hope we had entertained of being, by this time, in a position to announce that some decided steps had been taken to carry out, in a practical manner, the great scheme of preserving a record of our existing Monuments, we are gratified at being enabled to bring under the notice of our readers several communications which show the still increasing interest which is felt upon the subject.
The first, by Sir Thomas Phillipps, besides some valuable information upon the matter immediately under consideration, contains several very useful suggestions upon other, though kindred points.
In approving of the design mentioned in your Notes by MR. DUNKIN, it has surprised me that in no one of the communications which you have there printed is any allusion to the multitude of inscriptions already collected, and now preserved in the British Museum and other libraries. A list of what are already copied should first be made, which would considerably abridge the labour of collecting. For instance, the whole of Gloucestershire has been preserved by Bigland, and nearly two-thirds of these have been printed. I should recommend his plan to be adopted, being multum in parvo , as to the headstones in the churchyards, and the clearest for reference by its alphabetical order of parishes. He copies them about 1780; so that now seventy years remain to be obtained. His collection would make two, or at most three, volumes folio, by which we can form an approximate idea as to the extent for the kingdom, which I estimate at one hundred volumes for the forty counties, because some of these are very small, and many monuments have been destroyed by the barbarous Gothlike conduct of church renovators and builders. ( A propos of which conduct, I believe they are liable to an action at law from the next of kin: at all events, it is sacrilege.) In many county histories, all the monuments inside the churches, up to nearly the date of the publication, have been printed, as in Nichols's Leicestershire . I have myself printed the greater part of those for Wiltshire; but some are incorrectly printed, not having been collated; for I merely printed a few as handbooks to accompany me in my personal correcting survey of each church at another time. I have also printed as far as letter E of Antony à Wood's and Hinton's Oxfordshire Monuments , of which, I believe, MR. DUNKIN has a MS. copy. Now, it would be useless to reprint those which have been printed; consequently I should imagine twenty-five or thirty volumes, on Bigland's plan, would comprise all the villages; and I should imagine five or ten volumes at most would comprise all the capital towns. Allow me here to suggest the absolute necessity of taking Notes of the residence, parentage, and kindred of every one of the families of that vast tide of emigration now quitting our shores; and I call Lord Ashley's and Mr. Sidney Herbert's attention to it. These poor people will, many of them, become rich in half a century; will then probably die without a kindred soul in America to possess their wealth; and their next of kin must be sought for in the mother land, where, unless some registered memorial of their departure and connexions is kept, all traces of their origin may be lost for ever. It was the neglect of an act like this which has involved the beginning of nations in such profound obscurity. It was the neglect of such a register as I here propose, that makes it so difficult now for the American to discover the link which actually connected him with England. There is a corporate body, long established in this country, whose sole occupation is to make such registers; but at present they confine themselves to those called gentlemen. Why not make them useful as registers of the poor, at a small remuneration for entering each family. These poor, or their descendants, will some day become gentlemen, and perhaps not ashamed of their ancestry, although they may derive it through poverty. How gratified they may feel to be able, by means of this proposed registry, clearly to trace themselves to Great Britain (once the mistress of half the world), when their now adopted country has risen up in her place, and the mother has become subject to the daughter.