276 THE ZOOLOGIST., 
Epwarp ArtTHuR FITCH. 
WE greatly regret to learn that Mr. H. A. Fitch passed away at 
his residence, Brick House, Maldon, on June 28th, after a compara- 
tively brief illness. He was the son of Mr. Edward Fitch, J.P., of 
Bayswater, and was born at Chelsea on Feb. 23rd, 1854. He was 
educated at Great Ealing School and King’s Cross School, London, 
and while in his teens passed the Senior Oxford Local Examination — 
with honours. He arrived in Essex in 1871, and began farming, and 
since 1874, a period of thirty-eight years, he resided at Brick House, 
Maldon. 
Mr. Fitch had strong natural history proclivities, and was early 
known as an entomologist. We first became acquainted at meetings 
of the Entomological Society nearly forty years ago, and he succeeded 
the present writer as Secretary of that Society in 1881, holding the 
office till 1885. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, but we 
believe the pressure of other engagements terminated his fellowship. 
As Chairman of the Essex Naturalists’ Field Club he did good work, 
and as Chairman of the Kent and Essex Sea Fisheries Committee 
for a number of years he was most assiduous in his duties, presiding 
there as recently as June 10th last. He was also on the Council, and 
was Local Secretary, of the Essex Archeological Society. His con- 
tributions to the topography of Essex are well known; he was the 
author of ‘Maldon and the River Blackwater,’ and for years was joint 
editor of the ‘ Essex Review.’ He was also a member of the old 
Chelmsford Odde Volumes, a Society well known to the few. His 
contributions to ‘The Zoologist’ were always valued. As a farmer, 
he was a practical agriculturist, and in 1902 headed a party of fifty 
Essex farmers who went over to Hungary to study first-hand the 
methods of Hungarian farming. 
But it was in public work—a record of which recently appeared 
in the ‘Essex Weekly News’—that his phenomenal activity found 
the inspiration of his life. He was six times Mayor of Maldon, and 
seems to have been connected with every public body of his district, 
from the aldermanic bench to wardenship of his parish church. In 
politics he was a pillar of the local Liberalism. Without reproach he 
could have said: ‘‘ Homo sum, et nihil humani a me alienum puto.” 
W.. G.D 
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