59 
Hishoy Canner, his Family and Tritings. 
By the late Rey. Epwarp Witton, M.A., 
Of West Lavington. (*) 
MHEN, in compliance with the request of our Committee I 
S/19) engaged to prepare a Paper to be read at one of the Evening 
Meetings of the Wilts Archxological Society, I mentioned, that “I 
had collected a few Notes illustrating the Biography of a distin- 
guished Wiltshire writer on Monastic History, a native of the 
Parish adjoining the place of my residence for the last 35 years,” 
I was referring to the eminent Bishop Tanner; son of the Reverend 
Thomas Tanner, Vicar of Market Lavington: this decided the sub- 
ject of my promised paper. 
4, 1 This paper was prepared to be read at the Society’s Meeting at Devizes in 
} 1863; but for want of time it remained unread. Since the author’s death, the 
f MS. has been placed in my hands, to be looked over, before being iiertied. 
_ Between 1863 and 1871, some additional memoranda about Bishop Tanner had 
_ fallen in Mr. Wilton’s way, which he had preserved, but had not woven into 
his paper. This I have done: and this with a few verbal alterations, is all I 
have done. In sending it now to be printed, as ‘‘Mr. Wilton’s Paper,” 1 will 
not say that I claim, but I use, what I am sure the Wilts Archzological Society 
"will most readily grant me in their pages, a little space for a few lines of Notice 
‘of One who, too diffident of himself to appear often as an original writer, 
_ still served the Society in a quiet way, long and well. 
' He was born at Edington near Trowbridge, about A.D. 1797, and he took his 
| degree of M.A at Queen’s Coll. Cambridge. For a very accurate description 
| of his character, and special ability, I am glad to borrow from an obituary 
‘notice which appeared in the ‘‘ Devizes Gazette,” the week after his death. 
_ Up to the time of his death he held the office of Master of the Endowed School 
of West Layington, to which he was appointed, we believe, in the year 1832, 
and he had now for many years been officiating minister of the Chapelry of Erle 
‘Stoke, where his ministrations and his earnestness in endeavouring to promote 
the welfare of those committed to his charge weré well appreciated. As an 
archeologist he was accurate and persevering, and many are the correspondents 
who would be ready to confess their obligations to him for valuable suggestions 
as well as for laborious investigations into points which required careful research 
and nice discrimination. He was a complete master in heraldry, not only so as 
to be a most interesting companion to any who were desirous to trace the origin 
of the various quarterings on their old family shields, but he had a more than 
