340 Personal Notices. 
Capt. Thomas Price Gratrex. Known in sporting circles as “‘ The Badger.” 
Died May, 1897, and was buried at Corsham, where he had lived for some 
years. A mighty hunter, Bailey’s Magazine for July, 1897, contains an 
article on him by the Hon. F. Lawley, with process portrait. Devizes 
Gazette, July 8th, 1897. 
Richard Higgins. Born July lst, 1815. Died June 24th, 1894. He was 
the son of poor parents—William and Sarah Higgins, of Everley, and began 
life as an apprentice in a general shop at Ludgershall. By his industry and 
energy he raised himself from one position to another until he became city 
traveller to the large lace firm of Fisher & Co., and on the death of Mr. 
Fisher he began business on his own account. A man of fine physique, of 
high character and great enterprise, the firm which he founded—that of 
Messrs. Higgins, Eagle, & Co., of Cannon St., London, met with much 
success, and in the latter part of his life he purchased “The Oaks,” near 
Epsom, formerly well known as a residence of the Earls of Derby. He 
died in London, and was buried in Abney Park Cemetery. 
Samuel Parker, J.P., died April 5th, 1897, aged 58 years. Buried in London 
Road Cemetery, Salisbury. Born at Warminster, he lived almost all his 
life at Salisbury, and had been a member of the Town Council since 1880. 
He was Mayor in 1888-89, and became Alderman in 1894. A Wesleyan and 
Liberal Unionist. Obit. notices, Salisbury Journal, April 10th, and Wilts 
County Mirror, April 9th, 1897. 
Personal Notices. 
The Hon. Sir Henry Charles Lopes, Judge of the High Court of Justice. 
Devizes Gazette, July Ist, 1897. 
The Rt. Hon. Sidney Herbert. Daily Mail, Aug. 3rd, quoted in Wilts 
County Mirror, Aug. 6th, 1897. 
“Parson Gale.” Macmillan’s Magazine, March, 1897, pp. 358—364, 
contains an article entitled ‘“ Requiescat,” which, although no names are 
mentioned, those familiar with Pewsey Vale will have no difficulty in 
recognising as a sketch of the late Vicar of Milton Lilborne. It deals with 
him as a sportsman, a magistrate, and a clergyman, and tells marvellous 
stories of him in each capacity —stories which certainly smack more of the 
eighteenth than of the nineteenth century, and yet may very well be true. 
Tn the article, however, justice is hardly done to the sterling worth and great 
good-heartedness which underlay the eccentricities for which he was famous, 
and the style in which the stories are told, with its somewhat irritating 
straining after humour, is not worthy of the very picturesque subject on 
which the writer is discoursing. 
