When Mayor in 1881, I acted as honorary secretary to a committee entrusted with the painting of a likeness of the late Charles MacIver. We gave the commission to Professor Herkomer, who called at the Town Hall to enquire what sort of a man Mr. MacIver was. I told him that he was a man of exceptionally strong character, a perfect autocrat in his management of the Cunard Company, of which he was one of the founders. Professor Herkomer called at the Town Hall a few days after, and said, "I am returning home as I have been unable to find the Mr. MacIver as you described him: he has lost a near relative and appears broken in health." The Professor called upon me again a few months after and said "I have found Mr. MacIver, the strong man you told me he was, and have painted the portrait." The picture hangs in the permanent collection at the Walker Art Gallery. In 1893, when Mr. Robert Holt was Lord Mayor, he received a telegram from Sir John Gilbert, R.A., saying he wished to present some of his pictures to Liverpool, and desiring that some one should go up to select them. The Council was sitting. The Lord Mayor passed the telegram on to me, and asked me to go up to London. I did so the same day, and called upon Sir John Gilbert, at Blackheath, the next morning. On my entering his room the veteran artist said "I see one of your names is 'Bower,' are you any relation to Mr. Alfred Bower, who married the daughter of my old friend Lance, the fruit painter." On my stating that I was his nephew, he replied, "Well, I intended giving Temple, of the Guildhall, the first pick, but you shall have it for my old friend's sake." I found the house stacked with pictures from the cellar to the attic. Sir John had been painting and keeping his pictures to present to the nation, together with an art gallery; but he had suddenly changed his mind, and resolved to divide them between the great cities. I selected some twelve or fourteen large canvases, which now adorn our art gallery. Sir John was our greatest painter of historical pictures, and one of our most brilliant colourists. Mr. Whistler came down to hang our Autumn Exhibition one year. He was most _difficile_, finding fault with every picture brought before him. We could not get on, and should have had no exhibition at all had we not hit upon the expedient of offering him a room all to himself, in which he should hang the pictures of his own choice and in his own way. He accepted the offer. This room has ever since been filled with pictures of the impressionist school. Upon Mr. Rathbone's death Mr. John Lea became his successor, and he has done yeoman service for our Autumn Exhibition. For many years he gave an annual dinner to the artists in London, and he was honoured by the presence of the leading members of the Royal Academy and their wives. The dinners took place at the Grand Hotel, and were exceedingly well done. They greatly assisted us in our work of collecting the best pictures of the year.