HENRY DOUBLEDAY, EPPING NATURALIST 315
After leaving school the two brothers assisted their father in
the business, an occupation for which they were quite unsuited;
but in his early twenties Edward left home, travelling to America
with a fellow Quaker named Foster. He spent two years there
chiefly collecting insects, birds and botanical specimens. After
his return he was appointed an Assistant in the Zoological Branch
of the British Museum, and it is said that he greatly improved
the collections there. He died in London on December 14th, 1849.
The year before that, their father had died, and the responsibility
of running the grocery and hardware business fell on Henry. He
was probably even less businesslike than his brother Edward of
whom, when he died, Edward Newman wrote:
"I am re-arranging the LEPIDOPTERA belonging to the
Entomological Club, and am doing this solely for the pur-
pose of assisting beginners, who are almost daily applying
to me for names. I propose being at home at six o'clock
every Thursday evening for this special purpose. You will
see that the Collection ought to be in better condition than
it now is, or I shall not be so useful as I could wish. This
idea is not new: I did the same 30 years ago, and continued
the practice for many years; but other cares intervened,
and the cabinets went to poor Doubleday, whose generous
disposition was not qualified for a curatorship, and under
him the Collection became reduced to a mere skeleton—
he gave and lent to everyone whatever they asked of him".
Edward had care of the Collection of the Entomological Club
for the last eight years of his life, i.e. from 1841-1849.
In the meantime, Henry resigned himself to carrying on the
business, but as he continued to spend a good deal of time in pursuit
of his natural history studies, it inevitably declined, to the extent
that in the year 1871, when he suffered a nervous breakdown due
largely to financial worry, some of his collections had to be sold
in order to satisfy his creditors. However, more of that later.
From their earliest days Henry and Edward had shown a great
liking for natural history, although it is not known that their
parents had leanings in this direction. It was whilst they were
still at school that a local boy, James English, found it profitable
to collect insects and other natural history specimens for boys at
Isaac Payne's, and after English's father died in 1836, Henry
Doubleday engaged him as an assistant and collector. It was
the beginning of a life-long association and the two became close
friends, Doubleday relying on English for help in collecting speci-
mens and in problems where the latter's mechanical genius could
assist, and in return English receiving a training of incalculable
value. English was born in 1820, the son of a gardener, who
was a former soldier in the Dragoon Guards. James English
died in 1888, having lived all his life in the cottage in Epping
in which he first saw the light. He was a Founder Member of this
Club, and examples of his skill as a taxidermist may be found in
the Passmore Edwards museum. Doubleday himself died a few