4
and covering of sand and shingle collecting was not easy but as he employed a man
"whose station was always on that beach" he was more fortunate than others. He
concluded: "after keeping the collection 25 years, I have lately presented a large
proportion of them to the Zoological Society and many are yet retained in my
possession". James Parkinson was indebted to John Hanson for a view of his fossils,
several correct drawings and a few specimens before he visited Walton. Parkinson
visited Walton several times and mentioned finding part of an elk skull there in 1808
(Parkinson 1811 p.318). He added that "At Walton, by digging .... and by the action of
the waves,,, the bones of several large animals have been discovered. These I have
ascertained to belong to the ox, stag, Irish fossil elk, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and
elephant...." (Parkinson 1811 p.366). He listed and described five hippopotamus teeth
that he had obtained on his visits to Walton but did not state if they had been purchased or
excavated by himself. One molar was figured by him (Parkinson 1811 pp. 375-6 and
plate XXI fig. 1). Parkinson finally considered the deposit from which the bones came.
He stated the bones he collected himself were found on the beach and others he was
taught had come fom a blue clay but he doubted this because matter contained in the
cavities of the fossils and the colour of the Walton bones suggested they had come from a
calcareous earth similar to that in which elephant and hippopotamus bones from Kew,
described by William Trimmer, had been found (Parkinson 1811 pp. 448-449). The
auction catalogue of Dr. Henry Menish's musem included "a most singularly astonishing
tusk and bones of an elephant found in the separation of a rock at Walton on the Naze,
by the enlightened possessor" (Kelham 1810). Lot 86 was described as a "matchless
specimen of the tusk of a stupendous elephant, in fine preservation, the point nearly
perfect, measuring in length 2 feet 2, and 13 inches in circumference, found in the
separated rock, at Walton on the Naze" while lot 87 was two large and very fine grinders
of the same elephant and lot 88 two more veiy fine elephant grinders and a tooth of a
mammoth also from Walton.
3) 1830s and 1840s. Dr. James Mitchell (Manuscript Vol. V pp. 172-173) recorded
that "fossil bones are found in great abundance by digging in the clay on the beach at
Walton. When this place was visited on 24th December 1838 two lads were engaged one
with a spade and the other with a pitch fork in search of bones. They said that they were
often successful. An old man of the name of John Tyler residing at a cottage in Hall Lane
employs himself in searching for bones. He had that veiy morning discovered the tusk of
an elephant six feet one inch in length. He had discovered the other tusk some days
before. He also had found a large vertebra. He had for sale a large store of bones, horns
and teeth of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, der, elk, ox and hyaena and of some
other animals. In the interior of horns obtained by Mr. John Brown of Stanway were
found valvata and planorbis recent fresh water shells. The old man said that the place
where he found the elephant tusks was arable land about sixty years ago. It is now about
300 yards from the shore". John Brown collected from Walton in the 1830s. He stated
(1845 pp. 523-524) that the deposit containing the numerous fossil bones of mammalia
was at Walton Gap or Gass. His collection was examined, described and partly figured by
Owen (1846 pp. 151-152; 247; 255-256; 260; 378-379; 390; 401-402; 410; 466; 489 and
510) and included hyaena, bear, tiger, mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox,
goat and deer. John Brown's manuscript entitled A list of Fossil Mammalia discovered in
the County of Essex, which post dates 1846, is held in the Department of Palaeontology at
the Natural History Museum. In addition Owen referred to a cranium with horn cores of
a bison obtained by Mr. Warburton "from the fresh-water newer pliocene deposits at
Walton" then suspended in the hall of the Geological Society of London (Owen 1846 p.
494). Owen stated the specimens obtained by John Brown came from "the till which
forms part of the beach at Walton Naze on the Essex coast" (Owen 1846 p. 151). He later
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 20, February 1997