'Gloucestriana' (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ... "THE MEMBERS FOR GLOUCESTER" A paper read at the T/teatre, Gloucester, before the Gloucester Literary and Scientific Association, January, 1863. I trust that those who honour me with their attendance this evening have not done so expecting to hear "the autobiography of Mr Powell," or " Passages from the Life of Mr Berkeley"--If so, it is but fair I should state at once, that I fear they will be disappointed. So far as I, at least, am concerned, the subjects would require more self knowledge than I possess, and also to be more freely handled than might be agreeable. I shall therefore leave the present Members for Gloucester to some lecturer who may have the honour to address you in the course of the next century, and who, if he should be as much in want of a subject as I have been, may be willing to take up mine, where I leave it off; for what I propose to do this evening is only to attempt a rapid sketch of some of the many remarkable men who have represented this City in Parliament from the earliest period down to the close of the last century. Our Parliamentary roll is a very long one--it commences in the 23rd year of Edward Ist (1295) for although Parliaments of some kind were held before this period, and some of them sat in this city, I can find no evidence that Gloucester was represented in the great Councils of the nation before that period. We know that a Witan Gemote was held here by leave of King Alfred in the year 896, which was attended by "all the great men " of Mercia, but at that time the city itself belonged to the Monastery, and of course the rewas nothing like Parliamentary representation. We know also that Edward the Confessor held a great Council in the building called the Long Workhouse, which formerly stood between...