Tue 30 Mar 1819
Clerk received notice from 13 of the existing Commissioners stating their terms of reference and the need to empower more Commissioners. A meeting to this effect has been called for 20 April.
Mr Ludlow’s opinion was sought and he was of the opinion that the Company solicitor Mr Fisher proceed with opposing the Rule for a Mandamus.
At a Meeting of the Committee of the Stroudwater Navigation held at the Committee Room at Walbridge on Tuesday the 30^th day of March 1819
Present: W W Darke, Will^m Stanton, Rowles Scudamore, Rich^d Miller, John Morgan, Tho Holbrow, John Snowden, Henry Eycott, P H Fisher.
Read the minutes of the last Meeting.
Examined the Books and Accounts of the Company.
Our Clerk having rec'd a notice of which the following is a Copy:
"Whereas by an act passed in the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of his present Majesty King George the third intituled 'An Act to maned an Act passed in the third year of his late Majesty's Reign intituled an Act for making navigable the River Stroudwater in the County of Gloster from the Severn at or near Framiload to Walbridge near the Town of Stroud in the same County and for giving other powers for the making of a navigation from Framiload to Walbridge aforesaid' certain Person therein named (upwards of four hundred in Number) and their successors to be elected in manner therein mentioned were appointed Commissioners for the purposes declared in the said Act.
And Whereas for continuing a sufficient number of Commissioners for putting in execution the powers of the said Act, It is thereby further enacted that when any Commissioners thereby appointed (or to be elected in manner therein mentioned) should die or refuses to act, the surviving or remaining Commissioners or any Seven or more of them should, and they were and are hereby empowered from time to time by writing under their hands & Seals to select & appoint in the place of every Commissioner so dying or refusing to Act, some other person qualified as therein is mentioned.
And Whereas many of the Commissioners named in the said Act are dead and others have refused to act in discharge of the duties and Powers thereby placed and reposed in them.
Now We whose names are hereunder written being seven or more of the Commissioners named in the said Act and who have duly taken and subscribed the Oath prescribed by the said Act, Do hereby appoint and call a General and Public Meeting of all the Commissioners named in the said Act to be held at the George Inn in the Town of Stroud in the County of Gloucester on Tuesday the twentieth day of April next at twelve o'Clock at Noon for the purpose of then & there electing and appointing, under the hands & Seals of such Commissioners, persons qualified as therein mentioned in the place of those Commissioners therein named who are dead or have refused to Act and if thereby continuing a sufficient number of Commissioners for putting the powers of the said Act in execution. And We order this our notice to be published in the two newspapers called the Gloucester Journal & Gloucester Herald at least ten days before the said Meeting. And also a Copy thereof to be delivered to the Company of Proprietors of the Stroudwater Navigation or to Geo Hawker Esq^r their Clerk, or to be left at their Committee Room ten days at least before the day of the said Meeting.
Witness of hands
the 29^th day of March 1819
Edw^d Aldridge, W^m Hicks, Edm^d Clutterbuck, M Barry, Jn^o George, C O Cambridge, Henry Barnes, R Kingscote, W^m Loveday, M Hinks Beach, John Phillimore, Tho Tippets, John Hawker."
Ordered that M^r Ludlow's opinion be requested whether it be advisable for any person (and whom) to attend the meeting to be held in pursuance of the said notice on the part of the Company,
M^r Ludlow's opinion on the case order'd to be laid before him, being read, Ordered that our Solicitor do proceed with his preparation for opposing the Rule for a Mandamus made herein.
