NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 



OF 



NORTHUMBERLAND, DURHAM, AND NEWCASTLE- 

 UPON-TYNE. 



REPORT OF THE COUNCIL 



FOR 1913-1914. 



The outstanding event of the year in the history of the Society 

 is the attempt which has been made to raise an Endowment 

 Fund for the maintenance of the Museum. The need of an 

 endowment has long been apparent ; it has been felt, in fact, 

 since the Hancock Museum was first built. As is pointed out 

 in the recently issued appeal (reprinted later in this report), 

 the generosity of local people of the last generation enabled 

 a particularly fine Museum to be built and equipped, a 

 Museum worthy of the noted collections it was to house and of 

 the distinguished men by whom those collections had been 

 made. But from the beginning it was plain that the resources 

 of the Natural History Society were by no means adequate to 

 maintain the Museum on lines commensurate with the ex- 

 cellence of the building, and this has been the chief problem 

 before the Society for the last thirty years. By great efforts 

 the membership has been considerably increased, but a limit 

 in this direction appears to have been reached, and it is now 

 none too easy to secure enough new^ members year by 

 year to keep up the numbers. Many other institutions of 

 similar kind have from time to time benefited by legacies. 

 Such has rarely been the good fortune of the Natural History 

 Society; its invested funds derived from this and other sources 

 were very small until a few years ago it received the generous 

 bequest of the late Mr. George E. Crawhall. An endowment 

 fund built up from legacies or direct contributions was so 



