20 SHORT HISTORY OF ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
24, 1917. Mr. Cole, however, retained the title of secretary
until his death in June, 1922.
In April, 1918, a Memorial, signed by many eminent scientists,
was forwarded to the Prime Minister, praying for a Civil List
Pension for Mr. Cole ; after a year's delay, a pension of Fifty
Pounds per annum was awarded to him in 1919 ; the contri-
bution from the Club's Pension Fund was, thereupon, with his
approval, reduced to £75 per annum.
In January of 1918, the Club voiced an indignant Protest
against proposals made by the Government to take over the
British Museum and the Natural History Museum for addi-
tional departmental offices. As a result of this and similar
expressions of public opinion the Government abandoned its
intention.
In May, 1918, a fifth "Special Memoir" was issued, this being
"Pre-history in Essex" by Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren ; and in
December of the sixth Memoir, "The Mycetozoa,"
by Miss G. Lister, was published.
In January, 1919, the Club, in sympathy with public agi-
tation on the question, forwarded a petition to the Corporation
of Croydon, asking it to reject any scheme of street-widening
which should involve interference with the Whitgift Hospital
in that town ; in this case also public opinion triumphed, and
the ancient building was saved.
In March of that year Mr. Miller Christy made a tentative
suggestion to publish a Supplement to his volume "The Birds
of Essex," the suggestion being sympathetically received by
the Council. But increasing business worries prevented Mr.
Christy from undertaking the work, which, as we shall see
later, was ultimately carried out by another author on somewhat
different lines.
The financial worries referred to also compelled Mr. Christy
formally to resign his editorship of the Essex Naturalist,
in October, 1919, which work I thereupon took over, as already
mentioned.
In March, 1920, Mr. Robert Paulson, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., suc-
ceeded Miss Lister in the Presidential Chair.
At the Annual Meeting, the Club passed a Resolution pro-
testing against a proposal to introduce a private Bill into Parlia-
ment with the object of permanently enclosing portions of Wan-