KINGSLEY CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 
A Special Meeting was held in the Lecture Theatre of the Grosvenor 
Museum on Thursday, June 12th, to celebrate the Centenary. The 
Rev. Canon Alexander Nairne, D.D., delivered an Address, the Right 
Rey. Bishop Mercer being unable, through indisposition, to give the 
Address as previously announced. Dr. Nairne’s address was illustrated 
by musical settings of seven of Kingsley’s Poems, under the direction of 
Dr. Bridge. , 
Professor J. C. Bridge, M.A., D.Mus., F.S.A., took the Chair. 
The President, Dr. H. Drinkwater, made a statement about the 
Kingsley Centenary Fund. 
This Fund is being formed by subscriptions, which are not to exceed 
one guinea, and may be sent to the Hon. Treasurer, Mr. J. Simon, 
4, Eastgate Row, Chester. 
Nearly £100 has already been subscribed. From this sum £10 has 
been sent to Holne. At Holne Vicarage, Dartmoor, Charles Kingsley was 
born in 1819. In his memory the people of Holne are restoring the Parish 
Church, and the Committee of the Chester Society of Natural Science, 
Literature and Art, feeling sure that the members would wish to further 
that memorial, named this as one of the purposes of the Fund in the 
appeal sent forth last April. 
The sum of £10 has also been sent to Eversley, where a Parish Hall 
is to be built in memory of Kingsley, who was Rector of the parish for 
thirty-three years. This also was mentioned in the appeal of April. 
These two donations being paid, all that remains will be the nucleus. 
of a permanent Kingsley Centenary Fund. Out of the income of this 
Fund it is proposed that a Lecture, to be called “ The Kingsley Lecture,” 
should be founded. Such Memorial Lectures have been founded in honour 
of other great men with very happy results. A notable example is the 
“Shakespeare Lecture.” established by the British Academy and delivered 
each year at Burlington House. On each occasion some distinguished 
Shakespearean scholar is invited to lecture. The chair is taken by some 
person no less distinguished and well known to the public. A year or 
two ago, for instance, Lord Bryce took the chair and Mr. J. W. Mackail 
gave the lecture. The lecturer is free to treat the general subject of 
“Shakespeare ” in any way he chooses, and probably concentrates upon 
some part of it of which he has-made special study. Thus each lecture 
is a finished work, a real contribution to history, literature, poetry, or 
philosophy. 
There is every reason to hope that we may found a Lecture at Chester 
which, in its own kind, may prove as valuable as the “ Shakespeare 
Lecture.” Our Lecturers also will be free to treat their subject in the 
manner which will enable them to give of their best. One might choose 
to be biographical; and, if so, he would not of course be satisfied with 
repeating, however charmingly, what is already known. He would have — 
facts to announce which he or others had freshly discovered, and he would 
present the whole picture in the light of some important idea. Another 
might treat of Kingsley as Novelist, and contribute something perman- 
ently valuable to the history. of the development of romantic narrative 
