In conclusion, the following extract may show the great care and consideration formerly shown. by the Corporation to what is now sometimes called the "woman's realm ":

66

"John Brookes, gent. Mayor.

[1743, 1 June.] "Ordered that Ald" Rainford "be desired to lay out and plant hedges and make grass plots for the inhabitants of this town, to dry their cloaths on, and the said heath to be "made fitting for that purpose, at the expense of "the Corp". [L.R. x. 114-115.]

APPENDIX.

The old seal of Liverpool, with its bird (Noah's dove) and sprig in beak, the Star of Bethlehem and the crescent, seems to agree with the reign of Cœur de Lion (Richard I), rather than with John. Their father, Henry II, had years before given away Liverpool, which shows its existence before King John's charter. Perhaps it was a home-made copy of a more ancient one by an unlettered man who mistook JOHIS for JODIS.

WHI

EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT.

HILE these pages were passing through the press, news reached us that their venerable, gifted author had passed away from the scene of some thirty years unwearied and intelligent labours in the cause of antiquarian research. The Paper, indeed, as printed, is not much more than Notes for the eloquent discourse delivered by our revered colleague in December last. When afterwards pressed to expand the Notes, though the wish was there the ability to do so had gone. Things mundane were a burden. To quote Matthew Arnold,

Mr. Morton's powers of mind and body had, for some months, been failing; but so determined was he not to give in that he was up

and out of doors within a week of his happy and peaceful death, which took place at 21, Mount Street, Waterloo, near Liverpool, on the afternoon of Saturday, the 9th of July, 1898.

Thomas Naylor Morton was born on the 3rd of March, 1816, at the village of Sibsey, in the Boston district of Lincolnshire, the son of a small landed proprietor, who was a keen sportsman and great rider, gardener and agriculturist, one of the earliest cultivators of asparagus, and at the same time a voluminous poet, the author of a Life of Saint Francis of Assisi, and of a work on the Holy Trinity.

His son, Thomas, was educated at Durham University, took Orders, and was a curate for a number of years, at Cirencester, West Houghton (in Lancashire), Harlow (in Essex), and Devizes. While at the latter place, he became involved in a controversy with his diocesan, the Bishop of Salisbury, upon the subject of the Real Presence, and after a long correspondence with him, Canon Estcourt (R.c.), and Dr. Newman, he was received by the latter into the Roman Communion, at the Oratory, Edgbaston, in 1853. After a stay there of some months he went, practically penniless (in truth a great sufferer for conscience sake), to London, to work in the publishing house of Messrs. Burns and Oates. In the metropolis he remained many years, and about the year 1870 he came down to Ince Blundell, where he engaged in scholastic work, and also arranged and transcribed Mr. Weld-Blundell's charters and papers.

About this time he became known to the late Sir James Picton, to whom, in preparing his Memorials of Liverpool and other historical works, Mr. Morton's wonderful skill in deciphering and translating ancient documents was simply invaluable.

His fame as a palæographer having reached the ears of the late Mr. Rayner, then Town Clerk of Liverpool, in 1880 he was appointed Record Clerk to the Corporation of Liverpool, the duties of which office he continued to discharge to within a very short time of his death, though warned by very alarming symptoms and cautioned by his doctor that it was dangerous to do so.

As has been said, his skill as a palæographer was marvellous, and his knowledge of places and persons in South Lancashire, from the 13th century onwards, gleaned in transcribing the Evidences of the Liverpool Corporation, those of the Earl of Sefton, Mr. Weld-Blundell, of Ince, Mr. Blundell, of Crosby, the Norris family, of Speke, Colonel Crosse, of Shaw Hill, Chorley, and the Moore Charters and Papers (about a thousand in number), was truly astonishing. For some time previous to his death, he was engaged in preparing Indices to the thirty-six folio volumes of

Okill MSS., in possession of the Corporation of Liverpool-a work which, it is to be hoped, will be presently completed by a competent hand, though it will be hard indeed to replace the one who has left us.

From 1882 till his resignation of this office, at the close of 1897, he acted as Honorary Assistant Secretary of this Society, in which capacity few know so well as the writer of these lines (to whom he was, indeed, a guide, philosopher, and friend) how valuable and varied was his assistance in preparing our volumes of Transactions for the press. Mr. Morton was an accurate classical scholar, a theologian, a geologist, an accomplished antiquary, and his knowledge and love of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers was wonderful. A country walk with him was a joy and an education. He was an authority, too, upon architectural subjects; and so far back as 1841 he published a large octavo volume on The Churches of the Holland Division of Lincolnshire: a scholarly, accurate, beautifully illustrated book. He knew much, and was ever willing to share his knowledge with others. None came to him for help and were “sent empty away." Unassuming in manners, he was humble-minded, patient under provocation, a plain liver, and high thinker, a courteous, kindly, honourable English gentleman.

Mr. Morton was married; and his widow, three sons, and two daughters survive him. His eldest son is a very successful Army Tutor, in London; his elder daughter is Reverend Mother at the Convent of Mercy, Handsworth, Birmingham; while the younger is Prioress of the Good Shepherd Convent, Dalbeith, Glasgow.

At his own request he was buried in the Liverpool Cemetery, at Anfield; where, on Wednesday, July 13th, what is mortal of him was laid, in presence of a representative gathering of relatives, friends, and those with whom he had been officially connected, and where, in due course, a coped tombstone of antique form, designed by Mr. Edward W. Cox, will be placed, at the cost of his family and a few of those who loved the man and knew the value of his work.

'Atque in perpetuum, Frater, ave atque vale!”—Catullus.

PLACES IN LANCASHIRE DESTROYED

BY THE SEA.

By Lieut.-Colonel Fishwick, F.S.A.

WIT

Read 14th January, 1897.

ITH the subject of lands in Lancashire submerged by the sea in pre-historic times. we do not intend to deal in this short paperindeed this subject has recently been brought under the notice of the Society by Mr. Cox (vol. 10). The places we shall refer to are such as are known from historic and undoubted evidence to have at one time formed part of the county of Lancaster, and to have at a later date been entirely destroyed by the sea; and we hope to now produce such evidence as shall at least approximately fix the dates when they were so destroyed. The places selected are Hert and Fordebottle in Furness, and Argarmeles and Arnoldesdale (or Aynesdale) in West Derby.

According to Domesday Book, Earl Tosti, amongst his other lands in the Lancashire portion of Lonsdale, had two carucates in Fordebodele, six in Rosse, two in Hert, six in a place called Leece, and two in another bearing the same name. West, in his Antiquities of Furness, writing in 1774, says that all these places had been swallowed up by the sea; Gregson' in 1817 repeats this. William Beamont, in his translation of the Lancashire part of Domesday Book, published in 1863, makes the same statement; which is again repeated in Harland's edition of Baines' History of Lancashire, in

1 Portfolio of Fragments.

1868. Now what is the fact? Roose and Leece are still well-known places in Furness, and are frequently mentioned in the coucher of Furness in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Fordebodele has disappeared, but we find that it was a wellknown place for over 300 years after the Domesday Survey. In the year 1153, Michael Flameng gave Fordebodele and its appurtenances to the abbot and convent of Furness: this was confirmed by his son William, and subsequently by his grandson Michael, in or about 1228.

From a confirmation made by Henry II (A.D. 1154-1189) of these grants, it appears that Fordbotle, Roose, and Crivelton were exchanged by Michael Flameng for Bardsey. Pope Eugenius III, by special bull dated 1152, took Furness under his protection, and thereupon confirmed to the convent all its previous grants inter alia Fordbotle. Richard II, by a charter dated 6th Nov. 1397, also confirmed these grants, and Fordebotle is again mentioned. After this date (1397) we find no further trace of Fordbotle (or Fordebodele).

Crivelton, which was associated with Fordbotle, is no doubt the Cliverton named in Domesday Book, and which Mr. Beamont assumed had been washed away by the sea. Such, however, was not the case; as in the coucher of Furness charters3 it is described as then being called Newton, which is the place still known by that name. Hert, named in Domesday Book, was erroneously put down by Gregson as being intended for Hest near Lancaster, but Beamont includes it amongst the places swept away by the sea. It is somewhat remarkable that no notice of the place known at the time of the Conquest as Hert has been discovered of earlier date than 1387, in which year (on 14th July) Walter Doget (or Daget), citizen and vintner of

2 Furness Coucher Book. [Chetham Society, ix., xi., and xiv. N. S.] 3 Chetham Soc. vol. ix. p. 71, N.S.