Annual Address to the Cotteswold Naturalists’ Field Club, read at 
Gloucester, the 19th April, 1888, by the President, 
Mr W. C. Lucy, F.G.S8. 
Following the usual course adopted by your past Presidents, 
of referring first to the death of distinguished members during 
the year, it now becomes my duty to give a short obituary 
notice of three of our late colleagues, which is the more painful 
from their being endeared to me by the ties of long friendship, 
and whose place in the Club will be missed by us all for many 
years to come. 
Mr Edwin Witchell died on August 20th at the age of 64. 
He had left home in the afternoon to look at a quarry in the 
Slad valley, and after having been there sometime, as the driver 
of his carriage was handing to him his fossil bag, he exclaimed, 
‘Oh dear!’ and fell to the ground, and the only words he 
uttered afterwards were, ‘Don’t leave me for a minute,’ and 
thus suddenly passed away, in scientific harness, hammer in 
hand, one of the most active members of the Cotteswold Club. 
Mr Witchell had suffered for the last three years from 
‘Angina Pectoris,’ which was the cause of his sudden death. 
He was elected a member of the Club in May, 1860, and he 
contributed to the Transactions the following valuable papers :— 
‘Sections of the Lias and Sands exposed in the Stroud 
Sewage Works.’ 
‘A Deposit on Stroud Hill, containing Flint Implements, 
Land and Freshwater Shells.’ 
‘On a Section of the Lias and recent Deposits in the 
valley of the River Frome at Stroud.’ 
‘On the Denudation of the Cotteswolds.’ 
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