157 



(f^iscrbattons on BafeclueU: Bctjtnnmg on 

 ttjt 31st of itta^, 1774. 



By AVhite Watson. * 



I 



EAVING Sheffield School in May, 1774, where I had 

 been educated under the Revd. J. Smith, whose usher 

 was Mr. Robinson, Mr. J. Eadon the English master 

 and accountant, and Mr. Bickley the Drawing-master. 

 On 31st May, 1774, I came from my father's at Baslow, to live 

 with my Uncle and Aunt Watson, Statuary, at Bakewell, at my 

 Aunt's pariicular request (who was my Godmother), where I 

 found the Rev. Rich''. Chapman the Vicar of the Church, the 

 Revd. Moses Hudson the Master of the Free School, who had 

 generally fifty scholars, and was much esteemed as a Master. 

 Mr. Samuel Roe, Sexton and Clerk of the Parish Churcli, was 



* The following interesting, though disjointed, memoranda pertaining to 

 Bakewell are from a Common Place Book of Mr. White Watson, F.L.S., a 

 talented resident in that town for upwards of half a century. He chiefly 

 excelled in geology, a science then in its infancy, and his memory is kept fresh 

 in the minds of literary Derbyshire by his valuable quarto work Delineatioji of 

 the Strata of Derbyshire. The members of the Derbyshire Archceological 

 Society have to thank the Revd. W. R. Bell, vicar of Laithkirk, Darlington, 

 for this welcome insight into the life of Bakewell a century ago, and of the 

 conditions of the old church, for it is from a transcript made by him many 

 years ago from the original note book, that these jottings are copied. Mr. 

 Bell was curate of Bakewell, 1862-1864, when he was a contributor of valu- 

 able papers on the registers, etc., of Bakewell to early volumes of the 

 Reliquary. — Ed. 



The fac-simile of a drawing by Mr. White W'atson (Plate IX.), given as a 

 frontispiece to this article, is taken from fhe original in the possession of Mr. 

 W. H. Carrington, of Bakewell, grandson of the surgeon who recovered 

 the newt. On referring to the file of the Derby Mercury., we find that Mr. 

 Chapman's letter to the printer appeared in August, 1799, not in June or July. 

 It merely gives a very slightly extended account of the statement that appears 

 on the fac-simile (which is in the handwriting of White Watson), adding that 

 the newt, which was living when dislodged, was preserved in spirits at Mr. 

 Carrington's shop, and could be inspected by the curious. — El). 



