Blogetty Blog 22: A Bright Spark – Charles Thomas Lucas

Agriculture apart, the first commercial operation in Britain may have been flint knapping. Flint, expertly split, was fashioned into the sharpest tools and weapons available before the discovery of metallurgy. Flint is a form of quartz which forms nodules and masses in chalk and limestone and its use dates back millions of years to the beginning of the Stone Age.

Flint was immensely important in the ancient world for producing knives, axes, spear and arrow points; as a house building material before bricks became widely available; and for its ability to produce sparks to light fire when struck. Ancient Egyptian craftsmen were even able to carve exquisite jewelry bangles for the Pharaohs and their wives from the brittle material. Much later on it became the vital element in the flintlock firearms which revolutionized warfare by permitting soldiers to kill each other at a distance.

Flint was mined in Britain in a district called the Brecken starting in the Mesolithic period about 4500 BCE. Devoid of farming potential this area had been considered hostile ‘broken’ land since Paleolithic times. Lying across the border of Suffolk and Norfolk the Brecken is – or at least was before climate change? – one of the driest regions of Britain and though much reduced in size it retains a unique ecology which includes many rare plant and insect species.

Open heathland alternates with dense areas of gorse, a tough spiky shrub which blazes the landscape deep yellow in the flowering season. The flint beds lie at a depth of over forty feet and the remains of numerous pits as well as a demonstration mine open to the public are found at a site near the county borders called Grimes Graves.

Regular readers will remember that following his successful employment interview with the contractor Morton Peto my great grandfather Charles Thomas Lucas’ (CTL) first duty was to survey the Norwich to Brandon railway route across the Brecken. It was authorized by Parliament as part of the Eastern Counties Railway designed to link Norwich to the north/south lines running into London’s Liverpool Street Station.

It was a lonely wilderness when CTL rode out into its mystery in spring of 1842, feeling like an explorer of an unknown land as he led his small party of assistants and mules laden with survey poles and camping gear westward from Norwich. It would be a ‘doddle’ he thought, for he had learned the techniques of surveying during his apprenticeship. The great tangled clumps of gorse which impeded progress in a straight line soon taught him otherwise and proved a painful and difficult obstacle to remove by hand.

When I learned of his trek across the Breckland I hoped CTL might have seen a Great Bustard, formerly the most prominent inhabitants of the empty heath. It is a magnificent bird standing three feet tall and weighing up to forty pounds, one of the heaviest able to fly, whose edible excellence was its undoing when sporting guns spread into widespread use. Sadly the last few breeding birds had been shot a few years before CTL began his exploration and only very occasional visitors from Spain or Hungary would be seen again in Britain.

Until this century when ardent admirers called the Great Bustard Group established a reintroduction program on Salisbury plain which has had good breeding success and has returned a number of birds to the wild land owned and protected by the Department of Defense. It’s quite a thought to realize the builders of Stonehenge may have watched flocks of these ancient residents overfly their labors as they wrestled with the colossal stones of their temple. Welcome back!

Charles Thomas’s work permitted track laying to start in 1844, and the engineers and navvies laying the sleepers and rail moved forward at such a splendid pace that the 30 mile long service was opened on July 30th 1845. Peto was delighted with CTL’s performance. He had recognized an exceptional talent combined with a charming personality in their first meeting and it is proof of their excellent relationship that Peto released CTL from his direct employment after a year’s engagement and encouraged him to set himself up in business independently.

CTL had always been close to his younger brother Thomas and invited him to become an equal partner in Lucas Brothers. Peto then employed them to reconstruct Somerleyton Hall near Lowestoft as his personal residence, and thereafter to participate in his extensive development of the town as a port and seaside resort. The initial survey job also developed into supervision of all the railway projects around Norwich, including the lines to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.

Confidence in a permanent career permitted Charles Thomas to marry Charlotte Emma Tiffin on April 7th 1842. They lived at 41 Foundry Bridge Road in Thorpe, a hamlet outside Norwich, where he would soon build the main railway station. The census tells us they had a groom, nurse, cook and housemaid in residence. At age 22 he was already prospering from his association with his magnanimous friend and supporter.

Charlotte (1823-1889), always known as Emma, has proved difficult to trace. Her father Charles Tiffin is described in the 1841 census as a “bug destroyer” living in Somers Place, south of the Thames. “You have to be joking!” I thought on reading his description. But no – Tiffin and Son were the leaders in the new bedbug “industry”, advertising themselves as Bug Exterminators to Her Majesty the Queen. Evidently bedbugs had become another London plague and were no respecters of person. Emma’s mother, Mary Hagg (b. 1794) was Swedish, but that is the only thing known about her.

It is intriguing to wonder when and where CTL met Emma and how their romance flourished. Were they introduced by a friend? Did chance bring them together? Did he spot her on a horse-drawn omnibus and deliberately choose the seat beside her? Was their first glance sufficient to seal a transformational lifelong journey together? All we can know for sure is that the marriage was a happy and enduring success.

Thorpe provided me with a curious point of contact with my great grandfather. I drove through the village countless times during the 7 years I worked at Lacon’s Brewery in Great Yarmouth after my demobilization at the end of WWII. It was still a small village on the River Yare, and I thought it picturesque and unusually appealing. I remember parking one summer morning and exploring the path along the river bank where the road from Yarmouth runs closely beside the water under mature trees. It provided a sheltered and favored mooring point for boaters cruising the Broads, a network of waterways in Norfolk and Suffolk.

I had no idea that Charles Thomas had lived there, and it seems odd when I recall my special feeling of familiarity with the place, because, as previously noted, despite my slice of Irish inheritance I am not usually inclined to be fey. How could it be familiar when I did not yet know anything of his history there? Did my imagination weirdly embroidered a pretty location? What do you think?

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