25 OCTOBER 1940, Page 5

I cannot omit a line of lament for John Beresford,

killed some time in October by enemy action. A cousin of J. D., the novelist, he was a civil servant by profession and a writer by choice. His essays were thoughtful, delicate, cultured, and he did a notable piece of work, by which he will long be remembered, in editing five volumes of Parson Woodforde's diaries, which he himself discovered. He roamed over many departments of the civil service, acting recently, in addition to various other duties, as secretary of the University Grants Committee. He was full of literary potentialities, and his years of retirement, when they came, would have been rich in output.

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