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enjoy an al fresco entertainment, some slight recompense perhaps 
for the late hours and the subsequent bad tempers, but this after a 
time was discontinued. Bath was even then a model city, and 
the wives sat with their husbands at the festal board, and by 
their presence restrained the boorish manners of the day that no 
headaches, no bad tempers followed, and no recompensing picnic 
was necessary. 
The question of Feast or no Feast convulsed the company in 
1679. Mr. W. Tanner became Senior Master, Mr. George 
Attwood being chosen Junior Master. What followed the 
election is lost to history, whether Mr. Tanner had scruples 
about such vanities, was penurious or feared the times must ever 
remain doubtful, the memoranda have been obliterated and the 
leaf which contained the minutes has been cut out. Mr. Tanner 
appears to have frequently expressed himself as strongly opposed 
to the yearly feast and to the quarterly meetings being held at 
the Master’s house, but nothing unusual is recorded in the 
minutes of the meeting of 16th of June, 1679, when Mr. Tanner 
was appointed Senior Master, but upon his refusal to perform 
the customary act of hospitality a special meeting appears to 
have been held, the record of which has been cut out, and on 
25th July he was formally deposed. 
The Memorandum is, I think, in the handy -iting of Mr. John 
Masters, Clerk to the Company and a Mayor of Bath, and it is 
signed by all the members present, Mr. Benjamin Baber, who 
had been Mayor the previous year, signing after the Junior 
Master. 
“‘ Ata Meeting held at Mr. George Attwood’s, July 25th, 1679. 
Memorandum—Whereas it hath been an ancient and laudable 
costome time out of memory that the Senior Master should on 
Midsummer day make a feaste for the freemen of this company 
and their wives and also keep the quarter meetings for the 
allowance of fourty shillings out of the stock cf the said Company 
And whereas William Tanner the now Senior Master hath 
