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Jn /llbeinortam, 



ALFRED BEAUMONT. 



It is with sincere regret that we record the death of Mr. Alfred 

 Beaumont, which took place suddenly in the evening- of Monday, 

 2ist February, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He was 

 one of the oldest field naturalists in the country, and was also 

 almost the oldest Fellow of the Entomological Society of 

 London, having been elected in T851. Born at Honley, near 

 Huddersfield, his early school days were spent at Storthes Hall, 

 near Huddersfield, under the tutorship of the late Mr. Peter 

 Inchbald, who, in his day, was well known throughout the 

 country as a good entomologist. As school-fellows, Beaumont 

 there met the late J. W. Dunning, and the late T. H. AUis, 

 both of whom, along with himself, soon imbibed their master's 

 passion for entomology, a passion which all three retained to 

 the end of their lives. It was at Storthes Hall, too, we believe, 

 that he first met the late H. T. Stainton, and the long years of 

 intimate friendship between Inchbald, Stainton, Dunning, and 

 Beaumont was only broken by death. On leaving school 

 Beaumont joined his father's large woollen manufacturing 

 business at Steps Mill, Honley, subsequently becoming the head 

 of it himself. He early became associated with the Huddersfield 

 Naturalists' Society, then chiefly composed of working nien, 

 and, as was natural in a man of his position, taking a very 

 active and enthusiastic interest in it, he soon made it a large, 

 successful, and prosperous society. For a considerable time, 

 now towards forty years ago, he was its President, and the life 

 and vigour he put into it are well remembered yet by those of 

 its then members who have never broken their connection with 

 the society. It is recalled with pride how in those days he took 

 the lead in the inauguration of large and successful natural 

 history exhibitions of fortnight's duration, when one of the 

 largest halls in the town was always filled with specimens, 

 which were always opened by the Earl of Dartmouth, supported 

 on the platform by some of the country's most eminent naturalists, 

 friends of the President. At one of these exhibitions Beaumont 

 created quite a sensation in the town by inviting and entertain- 

 ing the eminent explorer just returned to England, Du Chaillu, 

 who gave a lecture in the exhibition on his recent discovery of 

 the Gorilla, an ape which he declared to closely resemble the 

 human being, and which consequently was creating great public 

 interest. Another ever to be remembered day was that on 



Naturalist, 



