OBITUARY NOTICES. I7I 



that Petvicola has departed so much in external form from the 

 other members of the family (Veneridae) to which it belongs ? 

 Must we adopt Lamarckism for the nonce, and hold that it is 

 community of habits and environment which has produced 

 the close resemblance in these soft -rock burrowing genera, 

 Petvicola and Pholas ? 



OBITUARY NOTICES. 



THE LATE EDMUND DURE A NT. 

 Honorary Lihravian to Essex Field Club. 



[With Portrait, Plate IV. 1 



It was with very great regret that many old members of the Club heard 

 of the death of Edmund Durrant, a man highly respected from his prominence 

 in many intellectual movements in the County, and, perhaps, the last in 

 Essex of the grand old race of " literary booksellers," who knew something 

 more of the books they dealt in than their bindings and prices. He died on 

 August 30th, 1900, after a painful illness of several months' duration. 



The materials existing for a memoir of Mr. Durrant are but scanty, and 

 they have been utilised in the biographical notices in the local papers and in 

 an article in the Essex Revieiv ; from these articles the following notes are 

 mainly compiled. 



Edmund Durrant came of a family which had settled in Chelmsford for 

 many generations. His father was George Hill Durrant, actuary to the old 

 Savings Bank ; his mother before her marriage was a Miss Francis, daughter 

 of an Essex farmer. After a school-boy life at the Grammar School, he went 

 to Brighton as an apprentice, and then came to complete his business training 

 at Hatchetts and elsewhere, and for some time was in business for himself at 

 Walworth. About 1875 he came back to Chelmsford to settle for life at 90, 

 High Street, in the bookselling aud publishing house which had been 

 established there for more than a century. Durrant quickly gave a literary 

 tone to the business by the publication of works of local interest, and his shop 

 was a delightful meeting-place, as all new books were placed on counters for 

 folk to look at and talk about, quite in the style of the i8th century booksellers 

 of the days of Johnson and Goldsmith. 



Mr. Durrant founded, in January 1S88, " Ye Chelmsford Sette of Odde 

 Volumes," a literary and social club which met fortnightly at his house for 

 lectures and discussion. It consisted of forty-nine members and a few 

 "large-paper" copies. As '-Volume One" Durrant was virtually President 

 of the society, and he took great delight in the " Sette," obtaining for it the 

 aid of many clever lecturers and speakers from town and country to meet on 

 the " accustomed shelf" under his genial and hospitable guidance. 



The Essex Beekeepers' Association was also another organisation of 

 which he was the chief promoter. For many years he was its secretary, and 



