4i6 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



managed from South Kensington and no special director 

 was required. Partly because (in my inexperience of such 

 matters) I felt rather confident of getting this appointment, 

 and also because I was becoming tired of London and wished 

 for a country life, I took a small house at Barking in 1870, 

 and in 1871 leased four acres of ground at Grays, including a 

 very picturesque well-timbered old chalk-pit, above which I 

 built a house having a very fine view across to the hills of 

 North Kent and down a reach of the Thames to Gravesend. 



Seven years later, in 1878, when Epping Forest had been 

 acquired by the Corporation of London, a superintendent 

 was to be appointed to see to its protection and improvement 

 while preserving its " natural aspect " in accordance with the 

 Act of Parliament which restored it to the public. This 

 position would have suited me exactly, and if I had obtained 

 it and had been allowed to utilize the large extent of open 

 unwooded land in the way I suggested in my article in the 

 Fortnightly Review Epping Forest, and how best to deal 

 with it an experiment in illustration of the geographical 

 distribution of plants would have been made which would 

 have been both unique and educational, as well as generally 

 interesting. I obtained recommendations and testimonials 

 from the presidents of all the natural history societies in 

 London, from numerous residents near the forest and in 

 London, from many eminent men and members of Parlia- 

 ment — seventy in all ; but the City merchants and tradesmen 

 with whom the appointment lay wanted a " practical man " 

 to carry out their own ideas, which were to utilize all the 

 open spaces for games and sports, to build a large hotel 

 close to Queen Elizabeth's hunting lodge, and to encourage 

 excursions and school treats, allowing swings, round-abouts, 

 and other such amusements more suited to a beer-garden or 

 village fair than to a tract of land secured at enormous cost 

 and much hardship to individuals in order to preserve an 

 example of the wild natural woodland wastes of our country 

 for the enjoyment and instruction of successive generations of 

 nature-lovers. 



I still think it is much to be regretted that no effort is 



