SHORT HISTORY OF ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 17
At the Annual Meeting of 1911 Mr. William Whitaker, B.Sc.,
F.R.S., F.G.S., was elected President.
The Forest Museum at Chingford came in for intensive
consideration about this time. Some years before (in July
1907) at a meeting at Queen Elizabeth's Lodge with certain
members of the Epping Forest Committee of the City Cor-
poration, Mr. Cole had expressed the hope that the Museum
might be granted by the Corporation an annual sum for curatorial
and other expenses, and as an outcome of that meeting it was
suggested that a Petition to the City Corporation should be
presented on the subject.
Accordingly, a Petition on vellum, signed by the President
and officers of the Club and also by Mr. Henry Albert Summers,
a member of the Common Council, who backed the petition, and
dated August 10, 1911, was duly presented and was followed
on October 5 by a Deputation to the Court of Common Council,
of which deputation the present writer was spokesman ; later, the
Deputation met the Epping Forest Committee at the Museum
itself to discuss the question. But the whole effort proved
to be vain. On June 7, 1912, the Corporation refused, by
letter from the Town Clerk, to accede to the proposal.
In the course of 1912 a Fund was inaugurated by the Club
for the restoration of the tombs of John Ray (1627—1705) and
Benjamin Allen (1663—1738) at Black Notley, and for setting-
up a memorial tablet to Samuel Dale (1659—1739) in Braintree
Church. A meeting of the Club and of subscribers to the Fund
was held at Braintree Church on April 27th, 1912, when the
tablet to Dale was unveiled ; and the renovated tombs at Black
Notley were also inspected on the occasion.
Disappointed at the failure to obtain financial aid from the Cor-
poration of the City of London to maintain the Forest Museum,
a suggestion was made by Mr. Cole to transfer that Museum to
Ilford or elsewhere ; but the opinion of the Club's honorary
solicitor being adverse, such opinion stating that the removal
would be an infringement, in spirit at least, of the agreement
with the West Ham Corporation, the idea—never strongly sup-
ported by the Council—was abandoned, it being the view of many
of its members that the little museum could continue to be
carried on, on a voluntary basis, at small cost to the Club's funds.
In February, 1913, a supplemental Agreement with the