Thomas Stevens, "Primus in Indis." 221 



Turning to Foley one finds that, while he himself writes of 

 Stevens as "a native of Bulstan," he also cites (iv., 705) from an 

 article by Professor Monier- Williams in the Contemporary Review 

 (April, 1878), a passage in which it is stated that 



" The first Englishman known to have reached India via the Cape of Good 

 Hope was a man named Thomas Stevens (also called Stephen de Buston or 

 Bubston in Dodd's Church History, vol. ii., p. 133)." 



Buston, Bubston, Bulstan, Boscombe, Bourton — what was really 

 the name of Stevens's birthplace ? The answer is, I believe, 

 supplied by the original register of Winchester scholars, in which 

 Thomas Stevens, the scholar of 1564, is entered as of " Busheton," 

 in the diocese of Salisbury. I do not know whence Mr. Kirby 

 derived his " Bourton, Dorset," and it is strange that he did not 

 follow the original register, seeing that he gives under the year 

 1553 another scholar, Bichard Stephens, from " Bushton, qy. 

 Bishopston, Wilts." It would be unfair, however, not to add that 

 Bourton, in the liberty of Gillingham, Dorset, is in the diocese of 

 Salisbury. See Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset, III., 625 (edition 1868). 



Assuming that Busheton or Bushton is the name of the place 

 sought for, it remains to locate it. I have looked at two assessment 

 rolls at the Becord Office, marked respectively -~- and -^p which 

 relate to the collection in various parts of Wiltshire of a lay subsidy 

 granted 13th Eliz. (1571), and find that a Thomas Stevens (who 

 was, I suggest, the missionary's father) is- named among seven 

 persons assessed at " Bushton " in the hundred of Elstub and 

 Everley. He was assessed on goods valued at £15, and had to 

 -pay 25s. No person named Stevens (or Stephens) appears in the 

 assessment for Boscombe in Amesbury Hundred, or " Busshopston " 

 (Bishopstone St. John the Baptist) in Downton Hundred, or 

 I Bysshopston " (Bishopston St. Mary) in Kamsbury Hundred. 

 The other persons assessed at Bushton were John Hardinge, John 

 Oliver, Thomas and John Haywarde, Bobert Spackman (a surname 

 to be particularly noticed), and John Colles — John Oliver for 

 lands, the rest for goods. Stevens was deemed to be richer 

 than his neighbours in this world's goods. The places entered 

 under the hundred of Elstub and Everley are : — Enforde, 



Q 2 



