Welcome
The story of the Lott family of Flatford
John Constable's painting of
'The Hay Wain' made
Willy Lott
famous
The Colourful Life of an Engineer
The Story of Willy Lott and his Cottage
The Story of Willy Lott and his Cottage
My name is Brian Lott, born in 1943, the only son of Harry Chickall Lott (1883-1975) whose Memoires I have just published.
They are available from Amazon books, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and other websites by Googling:
The Colourful Life of an Engineer.
They are five very readable volumes of interest to social historians, each focused on a separate country or period:
Vol.1 - A Victorian Childhood and College Life in Edwardian London (1883-1907)
Vol.2 - Emigration and the Adventures of a Young Engineer in Canada (1907-1914)
Vol.3 - The Life of a Pioneer and Engineer on the Western Front (1914-1919)
Vol.4 - Mesopotamia: The Story of an Engineer with the British Army of Occupation (1919-1924)
Vol.5 - World Travels and London Life between the Wars (1924-1933)
The Story of Willy Lott and his Cottage
The Story of Willy Lott and his Cottage
The Story of Willy Lott and his Cottage
This fascinating new book
ISBN 978-1-3999-6533-0
is full of historical details of
Willy Lott and his House, John Constable's
favourite subject, made famous in his painting
The Hay Wain.
There are details of eleven
of Constable's paintings,
and the links between the Lotts at the Valley Farm
and the Constables across the road at Flatford Mill.
For local historians and genealogists there is a glimpse of life in the 1800s
on a small farm in Flatford when Constable was painting there. A family tree of the
Lott families of Flatford
from 1715 to 1890 enables descendants of the family to trace their link to Willy Lott.
Available on-line and from
or
or the
Field Studies Office
at Flatford Mill
The Lott families in Australia
The Story of Willy Lott and his Cottage
The Lott families in Australia
I have also compiled
'The Story of the Lotts who Emigrated to Australia'
in the 1850's and some of their descendants
from information provided by some of the families in Australia, photo albums and letters written by those who emigrated between 1850 and 1890.
Before sending them to the Suffolk Record Office I transcribed our collection of
Lott Family Wills
1676 - 1900
A pdf version is available
by emailing lottb@imcgroup.co.uk
I also have
John Lott's Journal and
Farm Accounts (1808-1826)
which is full of fascinating details of John and Willy Lott's farming activities and their
life in Flatford when
Constable was painting there.
The Story of the Lott Families of Flatford
the history and genealogy of five generations of yeoman farmers, is now published by Lulu and available as a soft copy (pdf) from Brian Lott at
Photo Gallery
The Valley Farm, Flatford, the home of the Lott family for 200 years
Site Content
The Colourful Life of an Engineer
Vol.1 - A Victorian Childhood and College Life in Edwardian London (1883-1907)
This fascinating personal story from the diaries of a young man (Harry Lott) born in 1883 to a middle-class farming family at Ashen House in Essex begins with his early years growing up in late Victorian England. Farming life in the late 1800s and the workings of the farmhouse with a maid or general servant and a kitchen boy are described, as well as transport, religion, and sanitary arrangments in those days.
Harry was a descendant of the Lott family of Flatford, yeoman farmers who owned the Valley Farm and Willy Lott's house at Flatford, just across the road from John Constable's family at Flatford Mill.
After the agricultural depression, in 1890 his father left farming and moved the family to Dorchester where he invested in Lott & Walne ,a foundry business making agricultural machinery. There Harry attended Dorchester Grammar School and developed his interests in music, science and natural history.
He won a scholarship to study engineering at the Central Technical College in South Kensington in 1901 and spent a frugal three years in digs in London at a time when Edward VII came to the throne, and steam cars, omnibuses and the Twopenny Tube were replacing horse-drawn carriages.
After graduating, Harry worked for a while as a tutor to Cyril Skinner before taking a job with Clark, Forde and Taylor, consulting engineers, who sent him as an assistant engineer on the 1905 Atlantic cable-laying expedition to Canso, Nova Scotia. Seeing Canada in the fall he fell in love with the country and decided he would emigrate and find a job there.
Before doing so, however, he spent two years gaining practical experience as an engineer in the workshops of Marshall's of Gainsborough. Having received his father's permission, he left Liverpool on 4th July 1907 on board the SS Victorian, bound for Montreal. His time in Canada is the subject of volume 2.
Vol.2 - Emigration and the Adventures of a Young Engineer in Canada (1907-1914)
Arriving in Montreal with £10 in his pocket Harry's first priority was to find accommodation and a job. Seven days and two introductions later he took a job with Allis Chalmers Bullock Co. at 15 cents/hr in their high-tension electrical testing workshop at Rockfield.
After six weeks he was offered $75/month by the Canadian Inspection Company of Montreal and worked as an inspector of steelwork at the Dominion Bridge Co. at Lachine before being sent to New Glasgow to inspect steelwork for a bridge on behalf of the New Brunswick Government, a few months after the Quebec Bridge collapse in 1907.
Harry's first winter in Montreal is described including skating, snow-shoeing, tobogganing on the Park Slide on Mount Royal, and dinners with friends. Further assignments included inspecting bridge work in the Laurentians and at St Casimir before he was sent to Winnipeg to work for the Winnipeg City Chief Engineer as an inspector on the construction of the bridge over the Red River at Redwood Avenue.
This was followed in 1909 by a transfer to Toronto to inspect the manufacture of a Camere-type dam for the St Andrew's Rapids on the Red River. In Toronto Harry tried ice-yachting on the lake and made a trip to Niagara where the American Falls had frozen, causing a 12-mile ice-jam on the Niagara River.
After spending three months of the summer of 1909 visiting his family in England he returned to take a job for Smith, Kerry & Chace in Winnipeg as an inspector on the construction of a 77-mile transmission line between Winnipeg and a new hydro-electric powerhouse at Pointe du Bois. His vivid descriptions of two years living in a tent in construction camps in the backwoods of Manitoba, with brief visits to civilisation in Winnipeg, are remarkable and include moose hunts and canoe trips as well as engineering issues he encountered on the project.
The last 3 months of 1911 were spent near Prince Albert supervising drilling to locate a new dam on the North Saskatchewan River for a hydro-power scheme for the city. Despite his advice not to proceed, the Prince Albert City engineers continued with the La Colle Falls dam project which was abandoned in 1916 and nearly bakrupted the city.
After another 3 months visting family and friends in England in early 1912 Harry took a job as Resident Engineer with T.Pringle & Son in Montreal on the construction of a new factory for Canadian Steel Foundries at Longue Pointe, surveyed a site for a dam on the St Maurice River at Grandes-Piles for the Wayagamack Pulp & Paper Co., and designed an 8-storey warehouse for Canadian Fairbanks Morse near Windsor Station.
Skiing in the Laurentians and another moose hunt were followed by his last assignment as Chief Designer of a large reinforced concrete factory for Canadian Kodak Ltd in Toronto.
War broke out in Europe in July 1914 and Harry joined No.5 Company of the Westmount Rifles, but became impatient with the delay in being mobilised and returned to England in December 1914 to join up there. His experiences in WWI are the subject of volume 3.
Vol.3 - The Life of a Pioneer and Engineer on the Western Front (1914-1919)
Harry was 31 when he returned from Canada and joined the 8th Battalion of the Royal Sussex (Pioneer) Regiment in Colchester. After six months training he went to France as a 2nd Lieutenant in July 1915 joining the 18th Division on the Ancre, close to the Somme.
The job of the Pioneers was to augment the Royal Engineers digging and repairing trenches, constructing shelters and dug-outs, repairing roads and maintaining the light railways.
His detailed descriptions of life in the trenches and billets close to the front line and the day to day work of the officers and men of the Pioneers provide a vivid picture of the humour and horror, the boredom and terror, and the fear and courage of those he worked with.
Brief historical descriptions of the battles add context to the day-to-day details.
Harry was Mentioned in Despatches in November 1915, promoted to Captain and was 2nd in Command of 'B' Company when the Battle of the Somme started on 1st July 1916. He describes the most eventful night of the battle on 13th/14th July in Trones Wood and Maltzhorn Farm when he had been promoted to Acting 'A' Company Commander and then to Commander 'B' Company as senior officers fell.
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette and the introduction of tanks in September 1916 followed by the taking of Thiepval Ridge and the Schwaben Redoubt are described before the Division left the front line for a Christmas rest in the Abbeville area.
Harry was awarded the Military Cross in January 1917 and was transferred to the Corps of Royal Engineers as Commander of No.5 Army Tramway Company headquartered in Vlamertinghe Chateau. Based in camps in Bapaume and Poperinghe he was responsible for the provision of tramways and Decauville Light Railways supplying the front line.
In May 1917 he went to Peronne to see his brother English Lott as he was dying of wounds having just been awarded the Military Cross.
In October 1917, after 3 months supplying ammunition to the batteries in the Battle of Passchendaele Harry was wounded, taken to a hospital in Le Havre and then to a hospital in a house in Torquay before moving to Peamore House, Exeter, for convalescence.
He returned to the front in February 1918 as Forward Area Officer in 5th Army headquarters.
During the German Spring Offensive in March 1918 he worked under Col. Battye and they had lunch 'under a hedge' one day with Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig.
After being appointed Controller of Foreways, 5th Army, based in Lille, he was promoted to Major in October 1918 and Mentioned in Despatches a third time.
Just before Christmas, a month after Armistice Day, he caught Spanish 'flu, was hospitalized in Etaples and then sent to convalesce in the Grand Hotel du Cap Martin on the French Riviera, returning to Lille in February 1919 for the clearance of the battle areas.
He left France in August 1919 almost exactly 4 years after landing there and was given orders to sail for Mesopotamia in September 1919 to join the British Army of Occupation in Baghdad.
Vol.4 - Mesopotamia: The Story of an Engineer with the British Army of Occupation (1919-1924)
Harry was posted to Baghdad where he was appointed Assistant Director of Works and Director of Electrical & Mechanical Services with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
The work of the E&M Services was to consgruct and maintain the electricity generating, water supply and ice making facilities for the British garrisons and local residents in 'Mespot' and NW Persia.
As well as supplying the three main garrisons in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, Harry had to supply troops to run installations in Hillah, Ramadi and Hit on the Euphrates; Shergat, Tekrit, Amara and Kut on the Tigris; Baqubah and Kirkuk in Kurdistan; and Karind, Kermanshah, Hamadan and Kasvin in Persia.
For Christmas 1919 he and Lt.Col. Bridcut went to Kermanshah and stayed with his cousin Alfred Taylor and his family; their daughter Doris became the Nobel laureate Doris Lessing.
Life in Baghdad and inspection visits across the whole country are described providing a vivid picture of the country as it was 100 years ago.
A brief history of the Arab Revolt in 1920 and its impact on the British administration is included, as is the role of Sir Arnold Wilson and Sir Percy Cox as High Commissioner.
River trips on the Tigris and visits to Biblical sites add colour to the story.
In January 1922 Harry was transferred to Basra as Deputy Director of RE Services where much of the work was to provide hospitals and other facilities for the newly formed RAF Command.
In Basra Harry became a Freemason at 'Lodge Babylonia', enjoyed shooting trips in the Marshes, a visit to Ur of the Chaldees with (later Sir) Leonard Woolley, tennis at the Makina Club and evening launch trips on the Tigris to escape the intense heat of the Basra summers.
He describes his work managing his Arab and Indian workforce and making staff reductions to reduce the cost to the British Treasury of the establishment in Mespotamia.
In June 1923, as one of the senior members of the Basra administration, Harry attended three dinners with King Feisal and senior local officials.
Working with the RAF and Air Marshal Sir John Salmond in 1923, Harry's use of a de Havilland DH 9A for his inspection visits to Nasiriyeh was reported in the Basra Times. The Times also reported extensively on the Farwell dinner given for him at the Makina Club just before his departure and demobilisation in February 1924.
His return to England via Bombay and his voyage on the SS Empress of Canada to Vancouver is covered in volume 5.
Vol.5 - World Travels and London Life between the Wars (1924-1933)
This final volume of Harry's memoirs describes the social life and history of the 1920s and 30s in a wide variety of locations and circumstances. He was an unemcumbered bachelor in his early 40s and describes his life, work, and travels in fascinating detail:
- escaping from the crater of an erupting volcano, Mr Kilauea in Hawaii;
- travelling on the CPR visiting friends and relatives across Canada;
- family life on a farm in a quiet Suffolk village;
- batchelor life in London clubs, theatres and restaurants;
- working with the East African Power and Lighting Company in Kenya ;
- survey safaris in Kenya for hydro-electric schemes on the Tana and Maragua rivers;
- life in Nairobi at the Muthaiga Club;
- working for Balfour Beatty on international power and infrastructure projects;
- 'almost an affaire' with Princess Nina Mdivani;
- negotiations with the Government of Madras on the Pykara Falls hydro-electric scheme;
- a journey to Shanghai on the Trans-Siberian Express;
- three months travelling around Nigeria and living in Government House, Lagos;
- visits to friends, clubs and night-life in Berlin, Paris and Paris-Plage ;
- speculations on the stock-market and the Great Wall Street Crash of October 1929;
- fine dining in London restaurants and City Livery dinners;
- life in the Constitutional Club in London and the West Side Country Club in Ealing;
- the World Power Conference in Berlin in 1930; and
- journeys in his first motor car a 13 hp Clyno Tourer.
The is the most varied of the memoirs and describes a time when Britain still had power, respect and influence around the world and there were unlimited opportunities for a professional engineer to travel and work in any of the countries in the Empire.
It provides a stark contrast to life in the world today, almost 100 years later, where much has changed yet a few traditions have survived.
All these volumes can be ordered from Amazon books, Waterstones or Barnes & Noble by Googling: The Colourful Life of an Engineer.
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