OBITUARY NOTICES.
171
that Petricola has departed so much in external form from the
other members of the family (Veneridae) to which it belongs?
Must we adopt Lamarckism for the nonce, and hold that it is
community of habits and environment which has produced
the close resemblance in these soft rock burrowing genera,
Petricola and Pholas?
OBITUARY NOTICES.
THE LATE EDMUND DURRANT.
Honorary Librarian to Essex Field Club.
[With Portrait, Plate IV.]
It was with very great regret that many old members of the Club heard
of the death of Edmund Durrant, a man highly respected from his prominence
in many intellectual movements in the County, and, perhaps, the last in
Essex of the grand old race of "literary booksellers," who knew something
more of the books they dealt in than their bindings and prices. He died on
August 30th, 1900, after a painful illness of several months' duration.
The materials existing for a memoir of Mr. Durrant are but scanty, and
they have been utilised in the biographical notices in the local papers and in
an article in the Essex Review; from these articles the following notes are
mainly compiled.
Edmund Durrant came of a family which had settled in Chelmsford for
many generations. His father was George Hill Durrant, actuary to the old
Savings Bank; his mother before her marriage was a Miss Francis, daughter
of an Essex farmer. After a school-boy life at the Grammar School, he went
to Brighton as an apprentice, and then came to complete his business training
at Hatchetts and elsewhere, and for some time was in business for himself at
Walworth. About 1875 he came back to Chelmsford to settle for life at 90,
High Street, in the bookselling and publishing house which had been
established there for more than a century. Durrant quickly gave a literary
tone to the business by the publication of works of local interest, and his shop
was a delightful meeting-place, as all new books were placed on counters for
folk to look at and talk about, quite in the style of the 18th century booksellers
of the days of Johnson and Goldsmith.
Mr. Durrant founded, in January 1888, "Ye Chelmsford Sette of Odde
Volumes," a literary and social club which met fortnightly at his house for
lectures and discussion. It consisted of forty-nine members and a few
"large-paper" copies. As "Volume One" Durrant was virtually President
of the society, and he took great delight in the "Sette," obtaining for it the
aid of many clever lecturers and speakers from town and country to meet on
the "accustomed shelf" under his genial and hospitable guidance.
The Essex Beekeepers' Association was also another organisation of
which he was the chief promoter. For many years he was its secretary, and