168 THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
other sons and three daughters, some of whom died at a very 
early age; but his brothers, John, Benjamin, and Henry, and 
his sisters Frances and Jane, were destined to be his almost 
life-long companions. 
William’s two elder brothers, John and Julius, were at board- 
ing-school at Woodford, in 1852, and it was during visits to them: 
that, at the age of 8 years, he first learned to know and to love 
the Forest with which he was to be so closely associated in later 
lite; 
His education was acquired at various private schools in 
North London according to the family’s not infrequent changes of 
residence, and later he attended evening classes at King’s College. 
We are told that he was a studious lad, though not caring for 
school restraints, and he read scientific books with keen interest ; 
at an early age he showed intellectual superiority, which led 
him to give lectures on Physical Science and Natural History 
subjects to his admiring brothers and sisters. | 
In 1861 William, as a lad of 17, was sent into a shipbroker’s 
office in Mark Lane. 
The death of his father, in 1865, brought about a removal 
of the home from Tottenham to Islington, and two years later 
to Clapton. William now entered the office of Mr. Charles 
Browne, Barrister, of Lincoln’s Inn, as shorthand writer, and 
stayed with him for some five years; he afterwards joined the 
staff of a morning newspaper in the same capacity. 
Though never a great lover of outdoor sports, William Cole 
was a keen cyclist in the early days, and he founded, with others, 
the first bicycle club in London. All through his life he was 
an ardent collector of butterflies and moths, as well as of plants 
and natural objects generally. Even in natural history pursuits, 
however, he preferred the more sedentary and intellectual task 
of arranging and naming the numerous specimens which his 
brother Benjamin (chiefly) went forth to capture. 
At Stoke Newington, whither the family had now removed, 
the microscope occupied a large share of his leisure as a young 
man. 
In 1877 another removal, this time to Laurel Cottage, Buck- 
hurst Hill, brought the Cole family into more intimate connection 
with Epping Forest, and the way was thus prepared for the 
foundation of the Essex Field Club in the beginning of 1880, 
