13.
BOOK REVIEW
HENRY DOUBLEDAY The Epping Naturalist
by Robert Mays F.R.E.S. 118pp., illus.
Precision Press, 15 High Street, Marlow,
Bucks. 1978. £4.20
All naturalists should welcome this
biography of the Quaker grocer of Epping -
Henry Doubleday. The Author is no stranger
to the Field Club for in 1961 he read a
paper on this subject. Since then he has
extended his researches and enquiries and
has now provided as complete a picture as
one could wish of the quiet unassuming man
who has added so much to our knowledge of
natural history. Doubleday published very
little. His observations were conveyed
chiefly in his correspondence with others
of similar interests and in this he may be
compared with another naturalist, Gilbert
White of Selborne, whose letters to his
friends a century earlier brought his work
to general notice. Unfortunately Doubleday
is by no means so well known and this book
should do much to rectify the position.
The biography provides an insight into
the life of a man who quietly but efficiently
took his part in the everyday life of the
village in which he lived. He helped in the
administration of the Epping and Ongar High-
way Trust which was responsible for the local
turnpike road by acting as its Treasurer.
He was also Treasurer for the Epping Poor
Law Union, but this was apart from running
his business and his absorbing interest in
natural history. Throughout his life, but
particularly as a young man he studied birds,
not only observing them and maintaining
continuous records of the arrival of 25