to the custom of Exeter. In 1215 a charter from John instituted a gild merchant with freedom from toll throughout the land. A mayor is mentioned in the court roll of 1386–1387, and a charter from Henry VII. in 1505 ordered that the mayor should be elected on St Matthew’s day, and should be clerk of the market. The present governing charter was granted by Elizabeth in 1596, and instituted a governing body of a mayor, fourteen masters or councillors, and an indefinite number of burgesses, including a select body called “the Twenty-men.” A fresh charter of incorporation from James II. in 1689 made no alterations of importance. The borough was represented in parliament by one member in 1295, and by two members from 1298 until disfranchised by the act of 1867. A market on Saturday existed at least as early as 1255, and in 1608 is described as well stocked with provisions. The charter of Elizabeth granted a three days’ fair at the feast of SS Simon and Jude (Oct. 28), and in 1608 fairs were also held on May day and at the feast of St James (July 25). The market day has been transferred to Friday, but the May and October fairs are continued. The town was formerly noted for serges, and in 1641 the inhabitants represented their distress owing to the decline of the woollen trade. The industry is now extinct. During the Civil War General Goring quartered his troops at Totnes, and Fairfax also made it his temporary station.
See Victoria County History; Devonshire; The History of Totnes, its neighbourhood and Berry Pomeroy Castle, (Totnes, 1825); William Cotton, A Graphic and Historical Sketch of the Antiquities of Totnes (London, 1858).
TOTONICAPAM, or Totonicapan, the capital of the department of Totonicapam, Guatemala, on the same high plateau as Quezaltenango, the nearest railway station, from which it is 12 m. E.N.E. Pop. (1905) about 28,000. Totonicapam is inhabited mainly by Quiché Indians, employed in the making of cloth, furniture, pottery and wooden musical instruments. There are hot mineral springs in the neighbourhood. In 1838 Totonicapam was declared an independent republic, in which the adjoining departments of Sololá and Quezaltenango were included. This state existed for two years, and was then again merged in the republic of Guatemala. Totonicapam suffered greatly in the earthquake of the 18th of April 1902.
TOTTENHAM, an urban district in the Tottenham parliamentary
division of Middlesex, England, forming a north
suburb of London, 612 m. north of London Bridge, adjoining
Edmonton on the south. Pop. (1901), 102,541. Its full
name, not now in use, was Tottenham High Cross, from the
cross near the centre of the township. The origin and
significance of this cross are doubtful. The present structure
was erected c. 1600, and ornamented with stucco in 1809. In
the time of Isaak Walton there stood by it a shady
arbour to which the angler was wont to resort. Formerly
Tottenham was noted for its “greens,” in the centre of one
of which stood the famous old elm trees called the “Seven
Sisters”; these were removed in 1840, but the name is preserved
in the Seven Sisters Road. Bruce castle, on the site
of the old mansion of the Bruces, but built probably by Sir
William Compton in the beginning of the 16th century, was
occupied by a boarding-school founded by Mr (afterwards Sir)
Rowland Hill in 1827 on the system instituted by him at Hazlewood,
Birmingham. It became public property in 1892.
The church of All Hallows, Tottenham, was given by David,
king of Scotland (c. 1126) to the canons of the church of Holy
Trinity, London. It retains Perpendicular portions, a south
porch of brick of the 16th century and numerous ancient monuments
and brasses. The grammar school was enlarged and
endowed in 1686 by Sarah, dowager duchess of Somerset. The
urban district formerly included Wood Green to the West, but
this became a separate urban district in 1888 (pop. 34,233).
In the reign of Edward the Confessor the manor of Tottenham was possessed by Earl Waltheof. It was inherited by his daughter Maud, who was married first to Simon de St Liz and afterwards to David, son of Malcolm III., king of Scotland, who was created by Henry I. earl of Huntingdon, and received possession of all the lands formerly held by Earl Waltheof. The manor thus descended to William the Lion, king of Scotland, and was granted by him in 1184 to his brother David, earl of Angus and Galloway, the grant being confirmed in 1199 by King John, of England, who created him earl of Huntingdon. He married Maud, heiress of Hugh, earl of Chester, and his son John inherited both earldoms. The son married Helen, daughter of Llewelyn, prince of Wales, by whom he was poisoned in 1237, dying without issue. She retained possession till 1254, when the manor was divided between his coheirs Robert de Brus, John de Baliol and Henry de Hastings, each division forming a distinct manor bearing the name of its owner. In 1429 they were reunited in the possession of John Gedeney, alderman of London.
William Bedwell, the Arabic scholar, was vicar of Tottenham, and published in 1632 a Briefe Description of the Towne of Tottenham, in which he printed for the, first time the burlesque poem, the Turnament of Tottenham.
TOTTENVILLE, a former village of Richmond county, New York, U.S.A., and since 1898 a part of New York City. It is on the southern shore of Staten Island in New York Bay and on Staten Island Sound, about 20 m. S.W. of the south extremity of Manhattan Island, and is the terminus of the Staten Island Rapid Transit railway. Marine engines, terra-cotta and boats are manufactured here, and there are oyster fisheries. The “Billopp House” here (still standing) was the scene of the conference, on the 11th of September 1776, between Lord Howe, representing Lord North, and Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge, representing the Continental Congress, with regard to Lord North’s offer of conciliation. This house, originally called the “Manor of Bentley,” was built by Captain Christopher Billopp (1638–1726), who sailed from England in an armed vessel, the “Bentley,” in 1667, and, by circumnavigating Staten Island in 24 hours, made it, under the ruling of the duke of York, a part of New York. From the duke of York he received 1163 acres of land, including the present site of Tottenville. The village was long known as Bentley, but in 1869 was incorporated (under a faulty charter, revised in 1894) as Tottenville, apparently in honour of Gilbert Totten, a soldier in the War of Independence.
TOUCAN, the Brazilian name of a bird,[1] long since adopted into nearly all European languages, and apparently first given currency in England (though not then used as an English word) in 1668[2] by W. Charleton (Onomasticon, p. 115); but the bird, with its enormous beak and feather-like tongue, was described by Oviedo in his Sumario de la historia natural de las Indias, first published at Toledo in 1527 (ch. 42),[3] and, to quote the translation of part of the passage in F. Willughby’s Ornithology (p. 129), “there is no bird secures her young ones better from the Monkeys, which are very noisom to the young of most Birds. For when she perceives the approach of those Enemies, she so settles her self in her Nest as to put her Bill out of the hole, and gives the Monkeys such a welcome therewith, that they presently pack away, and glad they scape so.” Indeed, so remarkable a bird must have attracted the notice of the earliest European invaders of America, the more so since its gaudy plumage was used by the natives in the decoration of their persons and weapons. In 1555 P. Belon (Hist. nat. oyseaux, p. 184) gave a characteristic figure of its beak, and in 1558 Thevet (Singularitez de la France antarctique, pp. 88–90) a long description, together with a woodcut (in some respects inaccurate, but quite unmistakable) of the whole bird, under the name of “Toucan,” which he was the first to publish. In 1560 C. Gesner (Icones avium, p. 130) gave a far better figure (though
- ↑ Commonly believed to be so called from its cry; but Skeat (Proc. Philolog. Society, May 15, 1885) adduces evidence to prove that the Guarani Tuca is from tĩ, nose, and cáng, bone, i.e. nose of bone.
- ↑ In 1656 the beak of an “Aracari of Brazil,” which was a toucan of some sort, was contained in the Musaeum tradescantianum (p. 2), but the word toucan does not appear there.
- ↑ The writer has only been able to consult the reprint of this rare work contained in the Biblioteca de autores españoles (xxii. 473–515), published at Madrid in 1852.
