1900, Mr Cole continued to curate the Passmore Edwards Museum until ill-
health compelled him to resign: in November 1917, Mr Percy Thompson,
F.L.S. was appointed Curator, but Mr Cole retained the title of Hon. Secretary
until his death in 1922, when Mr Thompson, already Assistant Secretary,
undertook this duty in addition to curation of the Museum at Stratford.
PHOTOGRAPHIC AND PICTORIAL SURVEY
An attempt, at first abortive, to establish a "Photographic and Pictorial
Survey of Essex" was initiated in 1903: by 1913, it was dormant, but in later
years it has been revived and vigorously carried on, for many years by Miss
Greaves, as an integral deparment of the Museum and in 1949, included 13,200
items mounted in 88 albums.
Up to the nineteen sixties, the Pictorial Survey collection of many
thousands of items was arranged in topographical order, but the need for a
multi-dimensional classification in accordance with modern computerised
methods of information retrieval has led to an extensive reproduction of old
negatives and reorganisation of the, by now, much enlarged photographic
survey, including many colour transparencies. The recent appointment of a
photographic officer to the Museum Staff will, it is hoped, lead to a remarkably
versatile arrangement by the end of this century, or even in the nineteen
nineties: for example, the questions to be asked of the Survey collection are not
only "What have we of, say, Stratford?" but "What between 1900 and 1910"
or "what photographs showing the Trams?" A computer is needed to locate
such records.
FIELD MEETINGS
An important part of the Club's activities from Easter 1880 has been the
Excursions, or Field-meetings as they later were called, and an official was
appointed to plan and organise such field-meetings, this duty often fell on the
already heavily-burdened shoulders of the Secretary-Curator in the early days,
although even in 1893, Mr Walter Crouch was acting as an unofficial Excur-
sions Secretary.
The first Field-meeting was held at Ongar on 29 March 1880 and for
several decades it was the custom to arrange a "very substantial lunch and tea",
the high cost of which (5/- for both) was found excessive by members, and a
protest was made to Council. Before 1925, a "high tea" was substituted, but for
many years after, and in the writer's own experience, tea had to be arranged by
the organiser of every field-meeting, or there would have been serious com-
plaints.
After the 1914-1918 war, the Hon. Secretary Mr Percy Thompson and
later, the writer and his Wife and Mr John Salmon, had acted to organise Field-
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