SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— E. 345 



With the full Bronze age circumstances seem to have changed, for though the 

 majority of existing barrows are above the 100 ft. contour line yet there are numerous 

 traces of the occupation of the flat lands by people in this period, and the quick 

 deposition of peat and the intensive cultivation of tlie fertile alluvial lands have 

 probably obliterated many more barrows and covered up both implements and, 

 possibly, living sites of the more or less indigenous people of the middle Bronze times 

 and of the invaders who came into the country during the first half of the last millenium 

 B.C. 



In the early Iron Age the caves were again occupied, and so were the swamps 

 south of the Mendip Hills where the lake villages were constructed. Judging by the 

 immense number of hill-top camps and the remaining Celtic field systems most of the 

 settlements of the early Iron Age were also on the hills. Thus the nature of the countrj' 

 seems materially to have influenced the settlements of prehistoric man in this district, 

 and while the limestone caves gave harbourage to the palaeolithic hunters, the Cotswold 

 Hills were also congenial to the long-barrow builders, while the low-lying country 

 supplied the needs of at any rate some of the folk of the succeeding centuries. 



Col. E. W. Lennard. — Some Intimate Bristol Connections with the 

 Overseas Empire. 



This paper collated under geographical headings the links, some well known and 

 others more obscure, between the City and Port of Bristol and Britain's past and 

 present overseas Empire. Much of Bristol history is also Empire history and the 

 city has been not unjustly dubbed ' The Cradle of the Empire.' Before John Cabot's 

 first voyage in 1497, many Bristol attempts to seek Atlantic territories had been 

 made. Bristol readily found for the famous Cabot voyages of 1497 and 1498 ships, 

 money and men. Following these voyages there was established at Bristol ' The 

 Company Adventurers to the New Found Lands-,' the pioneer corporation of the 

 British Empire. 



From the fact that John Cabot's pension after his return to Bristol was paid by 

 one Richard Ameryk, senior collector of Customs, and later Sheriff of Bristol, an 

 interesting theory with regard to the first naming of the new continent was discussed. 

 From the time of discovery onward touch was maintained by Bristol with the new 

 continent, and in 1603, Captain Martin Pring of the city explored much new coast line 

 and discovered Plymouth Harbour at which the Pilgrim Fathers landed seventeen 

 years later. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the ' father of Enghsh colonisation in North 

 America ' resided at and died in Bristol. He was proprietor of the entire Province 

 of Maine, New England. There were other Bristol settlements from which both 

 counties and towns named after the city have sprung up. That between 1654 and 

 1685 10,000 emigrants shipped or were shipped from Bristol is revealed by recently 

 discovered MS. books at the city Council House. In discharge of a debt of £16,000 

 to Admiral Sir William Penn, born and buried in Bristol, his son William Penn 

 received the grant of Pennsylvania which by the King's order was named after the 

 Admiral, his illustrious father. The first settlements in this new province were made 

 from Bristol. Fox, Whitefield, Wesley and Biu-ke were all intimately associated with 

 both Bristol and the American Colonies. The growth of Bristol trade with America 

 was traced and the fact recalled that with the \\estern port lies the honour of 

 establishing the first passenger and mail steamship communication with the American 

 continent. 



From its discovery by Cabot, Newfoundland was vitally connected with Bristol 

 over a long period of history, and the first Governor of the Colony, John Guy, sailed 

 from Bristol with emigrants of both sexes in Maj-, 1610. A further Bristol settlement 

 was established in 1618. The importance of the Newfoundland fishing trade right 

 up to the eighteenth century was discussed. 



British claim to the territory of the modern Dominion of Canada is primarily 

 based upon John Cabot's landfall in 1497. In 1631 a Bristol expedition explored 

 much of Hudson's Bay and its members were the first Englishmen to winter upon 

 Canadian territory. James Bay is named after their commander, Captain Thomas 

 James, who took possession of that region in the name of the Merchant Adventurers 

 of Bristol. 



From 1526 onwards, Bristol's trading and other connections ^vith the West Indian 

 Colonies have been considerable, and for long she was the principal English port for 



