by Roger F.Vaughan B.A., B.Sc. Hons.
150 Years of Geologists of the Cotteswold Naturalists Field Club
William Charles Lucy FGS,(20th May 1822-11th May 1898) is one of the great unsung heroes of Gloucestershire geology. Although born in Stratford on Avon, he came to Gloucester in 1850 at the age of 28, as a partner in his father's corn merchants business in Gloucester Docks. He was a hard worker and prospered, becoming Founder Chairman of the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal and associated companies, which built the Sharpness New Docks and Severn Railway bridge, which for a time made him somewhat unpopular in Gloucester having helped divert trade away from the area. He was a Director of the Gloucestershire Banking Company. He lived at Claremont in London Road, Gloucester, moving on to Harescombe Court, and then to Wynstones at Brookthorp near Gloucester about 1885.
He took up geology as a relaxation from his business life and joined the Cotteswold Naturalists Field Club on the 15th February 1859. On this occasion the Club had relaxed the rules that limited the number of members to fifty. He held the post of President of the Club from 1887 to 1892. He often entertained the Club generously when the field meetings were near his home. He was appointed Hon. Curator of the Gloucester Literary and Scientific Association Museum on the 31st August 1864, in succession to John Jones, and was the President of the Gloucester Science and Arts Society which founded the Gloucester Museum and Schools of Science and Art in its first building of 1873.
One of his geological interests was tracing evidence of the Ice Age, especially finds of high level erratic pebbles, which he interpreted as evidence of previous ice advances during the Ice Ages, His pebble collection is still in Gloucester City Museum. Between 1860 and 1887 he published twelve papers in the "Proceedings" of the Club on such subjects as "Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous Beds at Drybrook"; "The Gravels of the Severn and Avon"; "The Submerged Forest at Holly Hazel, Sharpness"; "The Extension of the Northern Drift and Boulder Clay over the Cotswold Range"; "The Minerals of Gloucestershire"; "Hock Crib, Fretherne" (Hock Cliff); "Section of Garden Cliff, Westbury"; "Boring for Water at Birdlip"; and the "Sinking of a Well in the Lower Lias at Gloucester".
The Club's Minutes show that on the 13th July 1859 they met at the Newnham to Westbury Cliff section, "which has lately been carefully examined by the Secretary (John Jones) and Mr Lucy, who have formed a section differing so materially from those already published that it will be formally brought before the Club and proposed for incorporation in its proceedings". In 1887 he produced a small but very useful book outlining the history of the Cotteswold Club from its formation in 1846. This book is a synthesis of the information contained in the Clubs Minute Books now stored (1998) in the Gloucester Reference Library. He died on the 11th May 1898. There is an unpublished portrait in oils, of William Lucy, in the collections of Gloucester City Museum along with some of his fossils, and a photographic portrait plate is in Volume VIII, 1886. The rest of his collection is in the Natural History Museum. The ammonite genus Lucya erected by S.S.Buckman is named in honour of William Lucy.
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Image © Roger Vaughan Picture Library 2004