Archive news from the Society.

2005

December
Food & Wine, the Journal of the International Wine and Food Society, published Joan Navarre, 'Asparagus and the Art of Good Living: Remembering Edward Heron-Allen, FRS (1861-1943)', in issue 85 (December 2005), 4-5.

The Society's Christmas card, featuring a photograph of Edward and Edith Heron-Allen standing outside their home at Large Acres, Selsey, was distributed to all members.

October
On 15 October a select group of members met together for a day in Selsey. The revised Heron-Allen plaque was unveiled by two of his grandchildren - Ivor Jones, our Treasurer and Liza Wood - on the wall nearest to the original entrance to Large Acres. The members then walked to the Rushmere Restaurant where they enjoyed an excellent lunch. At 3pm. they reconvened at the churchyard at Church Norton where they viewed the graves of Edward, Edith and Armorel Heron-Allen and decided on what restoration needed to be done. After some vigorous gardening and the replanting of some cuttings originally taken from the garden at Large Acres, the members then visited the nearby grave of Itha and her husband.

On 21 October, Newsletter No. 7 was published. It included articles on the 5th.annual Heron-Allen Society Symposium at the Allen Room, Soho, on 2 July 2005, the 5th. annual Heron-Allen Lecture at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford on 11 March 2005, a reprint of Beachcomber's article: '88 years old and still vegetating thoughtfully …'; the history of Heron-Allen's Westminster Fire Office Chairs by Joan Navarre; EH-A, the Purple Sapphire and the Royal Society by Timothy McCann and a further instalment of Morton Swinburne's interview with EH-A in 1929. The issue was completed by the regular list of recent publications and accessions to the Society's archive at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester.

September
On Thursday 8 September at 7.30 in St Peter's Church Hall, Selsey, Ted Barford the son of Dr. P.C. Barford, doctor and friend of Edward Heron-Allen, spoke about his recollections, memories and reminiscences of bygone Selsey at the meeting of the Selsey local history group of the Selsey Society. Joan Navarre, Heron-Allen's biographer, was present.

August
In his column in the Daily Express of 25 August, entitled '88 years old and still vegetating thoughtfully', Beachcomber describes a chance meeting with Joan Navarre, Heron-Allen's biographer, who had caught the wrong bus, and muses on EH-A, eccentricity and asparagus culture.

July
The Society's fifth annual symposium was held at the Allen Room, Dean Street, Soho on 2 July. Papers were read by Timothy McCann on 'Edward Heron-Allen, Raymond Tinne-Berthon, and Treasure Trove at Selsey'; Joann Fletcher on 'Edward Heron-Allen, his friends and their mummies', and Richard Hodgkinson on 'My friend Fortescue William Millett, the last of the "Great Foraminiferologists'. After the AGM Ivor Jones read some of Edward Heron-Allen's juvenilia. A report on the symposium by Garry Garrard will appeared in our Autumn Newsletter. The proceedings will be published in 2006 as Opusculum VIII.

June
Ross MacFarlane, Assistant Archivist at the Royal Society, wrote a piece entitled 'Edward Heron-Allen and the cursed amethyst' illustrated with the portrait of EH-A by Winifred Hardman, based on the letter about the 'purple sapphire' in the archives of the Royal Society.

Spring

The Linnean, the Newsletter of the Linnean Society of London in vol.21 no.1 (2005), printed a letter from P. Geoffrey Moore, FLS concerning an article in the previous issue on Sir William Abbott Herdman. The letter alludes to the publication in 1915 of The Life and Times of William Abbott Herdman, compiled from highly original sources, by E. H-A, and J.S.. The publication was a satirical skit by ‘the polymath Edward Heron-Allen’ and John Sampson, purporting to be a prospectus for a biography.