OPENING OF THK ESSEX MUSEUM, ETC. 32 1 



Club, the Staff of the Institute, and inhabitants of the Borough 

 and their friends) awaited the arrival of Lady Warwick in the 

 Museum building. - 



Her Ladyship arrived just after six o'clock, and was con- 

 ducted by the Mayor (Alderman R. White) to the first floor of 

 the Museum. Accompanying His Worship were Mr. Passmore 

 Edwards, Councillor F. H. Billows, J. P. (Chairman of the 

 Technical Institute and Libraries Committee), Mr. David 

 Howard, J. P. (President of the Essex Field Club) and many 

 others. 



The Mayor, on behalf of the burgesses, the West Ham Town Council, 

 and the Essex Field Club, welcomed her Ladyship and Mr. Passmore 

 Edwards, who had graciously accepted the invitation to open the Museum 

 and Institute. (Applause.) He called upon Mr. David Howard to make a 

 statement and to ask the Countess to declare the Museum open. 



Mr. Howard said that twenty-one years ago the Field Club was started 

 for the study of natural history and similar scientific pursuits in the county of 

 Essex. In the course of their work they had got together collections of con- 

 siderable interest, but which were unavailable because they lay in rooms, 

 ellars, cupboards, and packing boxes. They could not show these specimens 

 to, the public, and the Field Club desired that they should be able to exhibit 

 the results of arduous labour. A point of importance was that the student 

 would now have the Museum to refer to, and it must also be noticed that the 

 members of the Club had contributed generously from their own private 

 collecyions so that they should be laid open for public use and for the public 

 benefit!. They all thanked Mr. Passmore Edwards for his magnificent gener- 

 osity — ^\'loud applause) — and for the manner in which the subject had been 

 wisely approached by the Town Council of the Borough. The collections 

 which they had there were only a beginning ; do not let them think they 

 were completed. The more one worked the more completion appeared a 

 long way off. He thought enough had already been given and put before 

 them to show how very important to different students that Museum was, 

 and how much more it would prove to be. They were asking the Countess 

 of Warwick to open the Museum because of the great interest which she took 

 in educaiion of all kinds, not only of the kind before them, but of other of more 

 practical! and modern application. He askqd her to open the Museum. (Loud 

 applause.) 



Mr/. S. B. Russell, the architect, presented her Ladyship with a richly 

 ornarnented key of the Museum enclosed in a casket. 



Lady Warwick considered it a great honour, as well as a pleasure, to have 

 been asked to come and declare that Museum open. In common with other 

 Essex people the welfare of the county lay very close to her heart, and she 



2 We are indebted to the excellent report in the West Ham Guardian of October 20th for 

 the main portions of our account of the opening, supplemented by the reports in the South 

 Essex Mail, the Essex Times and other papers. — Ed. 



