143
The Life and Work of
Samuel Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S.
BY KENNETH P. OAKLEY, D.SC., F.B.A.
Through the death of Mr. Hazzledine Warren of Loughton on
March 27th, 1958, at the age of 85, the Essex Field Club lost a
member probably without equal in the amount and quality of the
work that he did for it in the course of the last half century. He joined
the Club in 1906, he was twice President (from 1913-15 and from
1940-42). contributed more than 30 papers to its Journal and led many
of its field meetings.
In 1918 the Club issued a Special Memoir entitled Pre-history In
Essex, as recorded in the Journal of the Essex Field Club. This had
been prepared by Mr. Warren in the form of a Presidential Address,
and proved invaluable to students of archaeology, geology and various
other branches of natural history. The Council of the Club has now
very fittingly decided to publish as a memorial to Mr. Warren his
complete bibliography. With characteristic industry and thoroughness
he had kept a list of all his publications, lectures and even the notices
of his contributions in the work of others. This list, with annotations,
was typed out under his direction only a few months before he died.
It was not quite complete: one more paper by this remarkable man
was then still in the press, and a half-finished manuscript lay beside him
when he was finally taken ill.
Looking through the list of Mr. Warren's published work, one feels
small wonder that his reputation in the fields of Pleistocene geology
and prehistory was international. He was one of a long line of dis-
tinguished amateurs who devoted their spare time and then their retire-
ment to the advancement of these branches of science.
Hazzledine Warren was born on June 30th. 1872, at Claremont, Goffs
Oak. Hertfordshire. He was the only child of the second marriage of
Stephen Warren, which was with Hannah Mary Hazzledine. He was
educated privately, and for a time joined the family business, that of
wholesale provision merchants, first in Whitechapel High Street, and later
in Tooley Street. London.
Warren had no formal education in geology. He once said that he
had no idea what turned his attention to this subject, for he could not
remember a time when he had not the spontaneous impulse to collect
stones. His later interest in the fracture of flint was preceded, he said.
by his fascination in the curious conical structures ("cone-in-cone")
which as a boy he had observed in anthracite stored for the greenhouse
stove.
Although he devoted the greater part of his life to the latest geological
formations and their associations with early man, he began by studying
mineralogy and the rocks of the earlier periods. At the age of seventeen.