346 The Fifty-third General Meeting. 



" Finance. — The detailed accounts which appear in the current 

 number of tlie Magazine show tliat at the close of the financial 

 year the Society had on the general account a credit balance of 

 £13 19s. l\d., as against a credit balance of the preceding year of 

 £5 6s. 2ld. The Marlborough Meeting of July, 1905, resulted in 

 a small financial gain. An item of £5 is due to a gratuity to the 

 late Mrs. Chalmers, who had acted as caretaker of the Museum 

 ever since its foundation. Failing health forced her to resign, and 

 she died shortly after her resignation. She took the greatest 

 interest and pride in the Museum and its contents, and knowing, 

 as she did, the history of almost everything in it, she was of the 

 greatest service to visitors. After advertising and interviewing 

 various candidates, your Committee appointed Mrs. Ward as her 

 successor. 



" Members. — The number of Members on the books is three 

 hundred and ninety-five, showing a decrease of six from the 

 number of last year. This includes those Societies and Institutions 

 termed ' Exchange Members.' During the past year the Society 

 has lost several prominent Members by death. Our veteran 

 Member and ardent supporter, Mr. William Cunnington, F.G.S., 

 to whom tlie Society has owed so much ever since he took a 

 prominent part in its foundation in 1853, has passed away. To 

 him more especially is the existence of the Society's Museum duo, 

 and to the very end of his long life he never ceased to show tho 

 liveliest interest in its welfare, both by personal work as long as ho 

 was able to visit Devizes, and by his many gifts both to the 

 Library and Museum. An obituary notice of him appears in tho 

 Magazine just issued. Mr. W. H. Parsons, of Wootton Bassett 

 (recently deceased), was also an original Member. He possessed 

 a great knowledge of the history for the last two centuries of the 

 neighbourhood in which he lived, and has left behind him large 

 collections of notes concerning it. Mr. A. C. Pass, also, though 

 not resident in Wiltshire, took much interest in our proceedings. 



" Museum and Library. — The number of visitors to the Museum 

 during the year (exclusive of Members) was seven hundred and 

 eighty-two ; of these there were one hundred and sixty-four in 



