144 Obituary—James Reeve. 
of local art was able to bring the collections up to a high state of 
efficiency. He retired in 1910 from active duties, and was appointed 
Consulting Curator, which appointment he held at the time of his 
death. 
The account books of the Norfolk and Norwich Museum show that 
James Reeve commenced his duties at this Museum on Monday, 
November 8, 1847, so that he was officially connected with the 
Museum for seventy- -three years—surely a record ! 
In the early years of his life he appears to have been a keen 
collector of land and freshwater molluscs from the lanes, woods, 
meadows, and streams in the neighbourhood of Norwich. He 
also worked assiduously for thirty years collecting shells irom a 
Crag Pit he discovered at Bramerton, near Norwich, a locality 
already made classic by the work of Searles V. Wood and Samuel 
Woodward. His collection from this pit is one of the greatest 
treasures of the Norwich Museum, and he was very proud of one of his 
rare finds being determined by 8. V. Wood as a new species and 
named in his honour Odostomia reevet. 
On April 26, 1864, the Norwich Geological Society was established, 
with the Rev. John Gunn, F.G.S., as President, John Ellor Taylor 
Secretary, and James Reeve an active member of the Committee. 
The Society flourished until 1884, when it became merged into the 
Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, established in 1869, 
a Society of which James Reeve was an otiginal member and a 
Vice-President at the date of his decease. He was elected an F.G.S8. 
in 1901, and was interested in F. W. Harmer’s Memoir on Pliocene 
Mollusca, published during recent years by the Paleontographical 
Society. His original papers were published in the Proceedings 
of the Norwich Geological Society, 1878-84, and imnumerable 
references to him are to be found in the Memoirs of §. V. 
Wood, F.G.S., F. W. Harmer, M.A., F.G.S., and E. T. Newton, F.R.S. 
The geological collections of the Norwich Castle Museum consist 
mainly of fossils of local origin, viz. Cromer “ Forest Bed ”’, Chalk, 
and “‘ Crag ’’, one of the most important being that formed by Samuel 
Woodward, author of the Geology of Norfolk, published as early as 
1833. 
The present Curator, Mr. Frank Leney, has added considerably to. 
the geological collection since his succession in office to Mr. James 
Reeve, and has published lists of all specimens preserved in the 
Norwich Castle Museum which have been figured by Darwin and 
others. 
Of Mr. James Reeve’s labours as an art connoisseur, and the very 
valuable collection he formed of the Norwich Schaal of Painters, 
let the prints and drawings in the British Museum and the Norwich 
Castle attest to his untiring efforts to rescue from oblivion and bring 
together the works of Crome, Cotman, Stark, Stannard, and others, 
who made a name for the Norwich school. 
Ve 
