Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/432

 334 PROCEEDINGS AT MEETINGS OF guests. Some of the members then visited Christ Church, and some other objects of architectural interest in the neighbourhood of Caerleon ; and in the evening, the party returned to Chepstow, and were safely landed at Bristol, after a day of very agreeable and social enjoyment. Tuesday, August 5. A meeting again took place at the Institution, Lord Talbot in tlie Chair, when a paper was received from Mr. Tyson, regarding the ship called the " Nicholas of the Tower," mentioned in Hall's Chronicles and in the Paston Letters, in connexion with the murder of the Duke of Suffolk in 1450. Mr. Tyson believed that this ship belonged to the port of Bristol, and was named from the Tower which there stood on the quay fronting the river Frome. Two curious communications were made by Mr. Joseph Burtt, regarding matters of local interest, detailed in certain documents which he had found in the Cliapter House, Westminster. One of these related to a singular civic dis- sension, on the occasion of the election of a Mayor of Bristol, in the fifteenth centurv, which appeared to have escaped the researches of local historians. The other consisted of the petitions of the merchants, drapers, fishmongers, <kc., of Bristol, iu the reign of Henry VIIL, against the establishment of a fair. From the allegations in these memorials, it appeared that the traders regarded this fair as an injurious interference with the regular and extensive inland traific, by which Bristol had been able to disperse through the western counties, by the sole agency of the inhabitants, the rich produce imported by its merchants, Capt. CirAPMAN, R.E., communicated some suggestions regarding the expediency of supplying a Map of British and Roman remains in the district surrounding Bath and Bristol. A letter was read from Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., relating to the family of Rowley, and certain persons supposed to be connected with the person of that name, associated with the history of Chatterton. Mr. Crocker communicated a notice of the recent discovery of two stone spear-moulds in Devonshire, of a type hitherto unknown in England. At the close of these Proceedings Mr. Yates addressed the meeting, being desirous to invite the attention of the Society to the deficiency of any public collection of casts from antique statues, and other objects of value to those engaged in archaeological inquiries. He considered that the erection of the " Crystal Palace," and the accumulation of large funds still unappropriated to any public purpose, afi"orded a most favourable occasion for supplying this defect. Collections of this nature exist in most foreign capitals. The want of such a repository has been frequently lamented, not only by artists and scholars, whose attention is given to the examination of antique remains, but by many classes of manufacturers, to whom such a series might prove of much practical value. Mr. Yates suggested, accordingly, that a petition to Parliament, or a memorial, should be addressed on behalf of the Institute, in such manner as the Central Committee should deem expedient, and proposed a resolution to authorise and request the Central Committee of the Society to use their best endeavours to prosecute this desirable object. Lord Talbot de Malahide, assenting cordially to the suggestions