Il6 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. II, NO. 4, OCTOBER, I904. 



W. D. CRICK, F.G.S. 



By CHAS. OLDHAM. 



(Read before the Society, September 14, 1904). 



By the death of Mr. Walter Drawbridge Crick, at Northampton, on 

 December 23rd, 1903, at the early age of forty-six, we have lost an 

 enthusiastic conchologist, who was elected a member of the Society 

 so long ago as March, 1886, Crick, who was born at Hanslope, in 

 Buckinghamshire, on December 15th, 1857, evinced as a school-boy 

 the scientific tastes which he was able to cultivate when he moved to 

 Northampton, where the greater part of his life was spent. Here, as 

 a young man, he attended classes in chemistry and geology, and after- 

 wards devoted much of his leisure to the study of geology and 

 conchology in the field. The demands made upon his time liy a large 

 business — he was engaged in the staple trade of Northampton, and at 

 the time of his death was the head of an important boot and shoe 

 manufacturing firm — restricted his active field work in later years ; 

 but his love for natural science did not decrease, whilst the catholicity 

 of his tastes is shewn by his knowledge of microscopy and archaeo- 

 logy, and his interest in books and book-plates, coins and prints, of 

 which he was a judicious collector. He was elected a member of 

 the Geologists' Association, London, in 1886, and a fellow of the 

 Geological Society of London in 1892. During the eighties and 

 early nineties he visited geological sections in all parts of Northamp- 

 tonshire and the neighbouring counties, collecting fossils, particularly 

 gastropods, a class of molluscs which had a special attraction for him. 

 His name is associated with Mathilda cricki Hudl., and Trochus cricki 

 Wilson. As a conchologist he was primarily a collector, but that he 

 did not neglect the more philosophical aspects of the science is 

 apparent from a letter of Darwin's, published in Nature^ only a 

 few days before his death, in which reference is made to some obser- 

 vations of Crick's on the dispersal of freshwater bivalves. He was 

 for many years President of the Conchological Section of the 

 Northamptonshire Natural History Society, to whose proceedings 

 he contributed several papers on conchological and palasontological 

 subjects. His sole communication to the Journal of Conchology was 

 a note on Achati?ta acicula in Northamptonshire (vol. 5, p. 151). 

 Crick was a man of a fine presence and a hearty, genial manner. His 

 kindly nature and integrity of character, coupled with an unbounded 

 enthusiasm for whatever work he took in hand, won the esteem of all 

 who knew him. 



