Wilts Obituary. 227 



So much for my Melksham information. 



With regard to the term Kowless Thing ^ and the like, cited in 

 the Glossary of Wilts Words, and in the Wilts Archceological 

 Magazine, it appears to me that Thing is simply an archaic 

 equivalent for the Latin i?c.s= estate. Cf. Horace (?) " Rem poteris 

 servare tuam." A search through the law dictionaries would 

 probably establish what I have said, and a more extended exami- 

 nation of conveyances at the date of the break-iqj of manors. 



Finally, as a student of field-names, it has occurred to me that 

 the name Rowley [which I have found myself not only in Melksham 

 but elsewhere ; not to mention its free occurrence in lists of field 

 names in the Wilts Arch. Mag.'] may have a dual etymology. It 

 may mean a rough ley, i.e., rough pasture, or it may mean, as I 

 have endeavoured to prove, a parcel of an ancient holding from 

 which the dwelling-house has been removed : (i.) Eough Ley= 

 Eowley ; (ii.) Eoofiess and Kowless =110 wley. 



Rt. Hon. William Wither Bramston Beach, of Oakiey 



Hall, near Basingstoke, and Keevil Manor, "Wilts, M.P. for the Andover 

 Division of Hants, " Father of the House of Commons," died Aug. 3rd, 

 1901, aged 75. Only son of Lt.-Col. William Eeach, and Jane Henrietta, 

 d. of John Browne, of Salperton Park, Co. Gloucs. Born Dec. 25th, 1826. 

 Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxon. B.A., 1849 ; M.A., 1852. 

 He was elected one of the Members for N. Hants in 1857, and continued , 

 to represent Hampshire until his death. He was a very prominent 

 Freemason, the owner of a large estate in Hampshire, and lord of the 

 manor of Keevil, Wilts. He married, 1857, Caroline Chichester, youngest 



' Thing^property, estate, holding, and so on. In the Falstone House 

 diary the word in question occurs frequently, as " his rowless thing called 

 Hurdles at Wiley.'" . . . "A rowless thing called Dawes-Frow.'', land of 

 Lord Arundel." " Major Francis Toope had 2 livings in the parish of East 

 Knoyle, being rowlist things." 



See Wilts Arch. Mag., Nov. 1892, pp. 357, 371, and 381. [G.E.D.] 



