128
THE RAY, DALE, AND ALLEN COMMEMOR-
ATION FUND, 1912:
FIRST AND FINAL REPORT.
By MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S.
(With Plates XI, XII., XIII., XIV., and XV.)
SOME considerable time since, I observed that the tombs of
John Ray and his friend Dr. Benjamin Allen (which stand
adjacent to one another in the churchyard at Black Notley, near
Braintree : see Plate xi.) had been allowed to fall into disrepair.
Further, it occurred to me that to Samuel Dale (another, and
still more intimate, friend of Ray) there was no memorial of any
kind in Braintree, where he spent his life, or elsewhere.
Much information in regard to the three men named was
given in my recent papers on Benjamin Allen1. It may be
convenient, however, to repeat here that, beside being friends
and contemporaries, all were naturalists of distinction, living
at Braintree or in its immediate vicinity, in the closing years
of the Seventeenth Century and the opening years of the Eigh-
teenth. They formed a highly-remarkable trio, whose residence
in or near the little town brought it prominently to the front
at the time as a centre for the study of Natural Science.
John Ray (1627-1705), by far the most eminent of the three,
was born at Notley, where, on the death of his mother in 1679,
he took up his residence at Dewlands," a house he had built
for her some years earlier (see Plate xii).2 There he spent the
remaining 26 years of his life, and there he wrote many of those
works which have made his name famous. He was not only by
far the most eminent British Naturalist of his day, but has been
rightly described as "the Father of Modern Natural Science."
The Ray Society (founded 1844) is, of course, named after him.
He was buried at Black Notley, where the present monument
was erected over his grave by Dr. Henry Compton, Bishop of
London, and other distinguished contemporaries. The monu-
ment was moved into the church in 1737, but restored to its
original position in 1792. Since then, it has been the shrine to
1 Essex Naturalist, xvi. (1911), pp. 145-175, and xvii. (1912), pp. 1-14.
2 "Dewlands" stood, just as Ray built it, to our own day. and was visited by the Club on
23 June 1898 (see Essex Naturalist, x., pp. 403-404). Unfortunately, it was completely des-
troyed by fire on 19 September 1900 (see Essex Naturalist, xi., pp. 331-333). The view of it
here given is from a photograph (the only one known to exist) taken by Mr. Henry S. Tabor,
three" months only before the fire. If shows the house from the north ; whereas the well-
known view- engraved for the Ray Society (Corresp. of John Ray, 1848) shows it from the east.