THE RAY, DALE, AND ALLEN COMMEMORATION FUND. 131
of two of them and the absence of any memorial at all to the
third was discreditable to present-day naturalists, and that the
taking of some action in the matter was a duty which fell inevi-
tably upon the Essex Field Club, as the county scientific society.
Accordingly, in April 1911, I brought the matter before the
Council of the Club. I suggested that, to ensure some action
being taken, our member the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy, formerly
vicar of Braintree, and myself should be appointed a com-
mittee to appeal for subscriptions from members of the Club
and others, with a view to restoring the tombs of Ray and Allen
and erecting a suitable memorial to Dale. The Council accepted
my suggestion ; appointed the two of us as a Committee, with
power to add one to our number (a power we never exercised) ;
and authorised us to proceed with the carrying out of such work
as we deemed necessary, as soon as the requisite funds should be
forthcoming.
Our first step was to obtain from the Rev. W. Warren,
rector of Black Notley, permission for the restoration of the two
tombs under his care, and from the Rev. T. Eddleston, vicar of
Braintree, permission for the putting up in his church of a suit-
able memorial to Samuel Dale.4 Both very willingly gave
consent.
In the next place, we obtained from Messrs. L. J. Watts,
Ltd., of Colchester and Braintree, the well-known monumental
masons, their expert opinion as to what was necessary to be done
to put the two existing tombs into a thorough state of repair
and as to the cost of doing this.
Ray's tomb, though structurally sound (having been care-
fully restored in 1792 and again about 1841), presented a very
time-worn appearance. It was found that it required to be
cleaned, the iron paling round it to be re-painted, and the four
Latin inscriptions to be blacked-in to make them legible. Ulti-
mately, also, it was decided to add a further brief inscription
recording the present restoration.
4 We had thought at first of offering to place the Dale Memorial in the Independent Chapel
at Bocking, on the ground that Dale, having been one of the founders thereof, was probably buried
In its burial-ground. We found, however, that, owing to the disappearance of the early registers
of the Chapel, it was impossible to establish this with certainty. Further, we came eventually
to the conclusion that, inasmuch as Dale was for long a prominent public man in Braintree, quite
apart from his connection with the Chapel, a memorial to him would be more in place in the Church
of the parish in which he resided so long than in the Chapel, which is in an adjoining parish.
Moreover, we found that most of the subscribers to the fund whose views we were able to as-
certain preferred that the destination of the memorial should be the Parish Church. Hence
our final decision.