SHORT HISTORY OF ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 9
The year 1893 saw the installation of Mr. Frederic Chancellor,
J.P., F.R.I.B.A., as President, in succession to Dr. Laver.
In March of that year the proposal was made to establish a
local museum in Queen Elizabeth's Lodge at Chingford, and some
of the City Corporation members and officials were approached
on the subject. A committee was appointed, which drew up an
illustrated pamphlet describing the scheme, in support of which
subscriptions were appealed for and obtained for fitting up the
Museum, when in being. An Agreement with the City Cor-
poration was reached and signed on December 31, 1894, by which
date some £95 had been received in subscriptions ; and the little
Museum was opened to the public by Mr. Deputy Halse, Chairman
of the Epping Forest Committee of the Corporation, on November
2nd, 1895, when a total of £125 had been subscribed.
In July, 1893, Mr. Henry Mothersole was appointed to the
post of "Assistant to the Director" of the Chelmsford Museum,
as from August 1st of that year. The Club's collections were
removed to Chelmsford, and the occupancy of the rooms at
Buckhurst Hill, where they had until then been stored, was
terminated at Midsummer.
At this period (1893) Mr. Walter Crouch was acting as Excur-
sions Secretary to the Club, although not officially appointed.
The disturbing discovery was made in November, 1893, that
the premises of the Museum in the New London Road, Chelms-
ford, were in sad state of decorative repair, also there was no
water supply available and there were no sanitary arrangements!
The Council agreed to spend £20 in remedying, so far as possible,
these defects ; and in the following February a grant of (not
exceeding) £80 was made for fittings for the new museum.
An offer was made to the Council from the "Essex Biblio-
graphical Society" (whose honorary secretaries were Messrs.
E. A. Fitch and Miller Christy), dated February 2nd, 1894 ; the
offer announced that the compilation of the bibliography of
Essex was complete, after more than three years' work, and
would probably make a volume of some 800 pages demi-octavo,
set in Brevier type, and the suggestion followed that the Club
should publish the work as a "Special Memoir." The Council,
in considering this proposal, endeavoured to enlist the co-opera-
tion of the Essex Archaeological Society in the venture, and the
latter body agreed, subject to its liability being limited to £50.