JUBILEE COMMEMORATION MEETING.
47
no fewer than 5,873 educational volumes are available for the
use, not only of members of the Essex Field Club, but of the
teaching staff of the Borough.
The Corporation has always taken a warm interest in the
Pictorial Survey of Essex—a collection of prints, photographs,
etc., of all parts of the County, amassed by the Museum, which
to-day comprises over 6,400 photographs, prints and maps
(including some 670 of West Ham alone), mounted in over 40
albums.
As I have already mentioned, the Library of the Museum
comprises 5,873 bound volumes; and, in addition, some 2,400
pamphlets on scientific subjects are included.
May I, on my own behalf, extend to you a warm welcome
to West Ham. I do happen to know a little about the sub-
jects in which you are interested. In my early days, if I had
not dabbled in municipal administration, I might have made
a good member of the Essex Field Club. I am sure you will
all have a very interesting afternoon, and I hope those of you
who are laymen will find the speeches both interesting and
inspiring.
In replying on behalf of the Club, the President remarked:
My first duty, Mr. Mayor, is to welcome you in the name of
the Essex Field Club. We are exceedingly grateful to you
for your attendance here this afternoon at the Commemoration
Meeting for the fiftieth anniversary of the Essex Field Club.
To you, and to the other representatives of the Borough of
West Ham, we are specially grateful for your support on this
occasion. It is further evidence of the close connection which
has existed for thirty-two years between the Field Club and
the Borough of West Ham. Especially from the educational
side we can claim that the Field Club is doing quite an excel-
lent work in this district. Although not nominally an educa-
tional society, I think the outlook and the work is really educa-
tional. In these days of the mechanisation of everything in
our daily life, it is a good thing that we should have societies
of this type to look after the study of natural history, and biology
in general, as well as various historical interests, and especially
pre-historical, which we take under our charge.
It is an excellent thing that this side of education should
be represented in a borough such as that of West Ham.