Fred J Speakman (born in Essex) was an English naturalist and author. He was one of Britain's best known naturalist-authors in the 1960s.[1]
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Speakman grew up and lived in Epping Forest. He was a teacher at Woodside School, Walthamstow [2] and spent his later years running the Epping Forest Field Studies Centre at High Beach between 1959-1979. [3]
A well known popular writer of illustrated guides to the English forests, Speakman in the late 1950s purchased a plot of forested land at High Beach in the expanding London Borough of Waltham Forest and converted it into a nature study centre which today is the Suntrap Forest Education Centre, High Beach. [4] The Borough became a pioneer in childhood environmental education, sending primary school children who often lived in working class urban areas on fortnightly visits to be taught by Speakman. By the 1970s, Walthamstow Council had purchased the centre, sending all final year primary classes to make eight visits a year to the Centre, with Speakman teaching thousands about the natural world.[5]
