332 



DESTRUCTION OF JOHN RAY S HOUSE. 



all will regret that the sum does not at all represent the loss Mr. 

 Turner has sustained in furniture and personal property. 



We have been unable to obtain any recent photograph or 

 drawing of " Dewlands " and therefore reproduce the view given 

 in The Correspoudence of John Ray, published by the Ray Society in 

 1848. The birthplace of Ray, in the opinion of Prof. Boulger, 

 was probably a house adjoining the \illage forge at Black 

 Notle}', but it is almost certain that he built Dewlands for his 

 mother, and in this house she died. Ray wrote in his diary : — 

 " March 15th, 1678, being Saturday, departed this life my most 



Dewlands, Black Notley, Essex. The Residence of John Ray. 

 Burnt dotun September 19th, 1900. 



dear and honoured mother, Elizabeth Ray, of Black Notley, in 

 her house on Dev/Iands, in the hall-chamber, about three o'clock 

 in the afternoon, aged, as I suppose, seventy-eight." Prof. 

 Boulger writes " the naturalist was probably with her at the 

 time, and on the 24th June, 1679, i.e., of the following June, he 

 moved to the Dewlands, ' where,' he says, ' I intend, God 

 willing, to settle for the short pittance of time I have yet to live 

 in this world,' and where he did actually pass the remaining 

 twenty-five and a half years of his life in industrious scientific 

 research." (" The Domestic Life of John Ray at Black Notley," 

 by Prof G. S. Boulger, Journ. of Proceedings, E.F.C., vol. iv. 



