NAVAL MAN AND NOVELIST:
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
HUMPHREY LANCASTER (1887-1973)
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

 

Humphrey Lancaster is perhaps known to a select body of enthusiasts for his two novels, both published by The Fortune Press – Barbarian Boy: The Story of a Young Slave in Ancient Rome (1929) and True Yokefellow (1937), but little is actually known about his life and circumstances, and so some small research has produced the following scant biographical picture.

Humphrey John Lancaster was born in Epsom, Surrey on 1^st December 1887 and christened there on 1^st January 1888. He was the fourth child of William Henry Lancaster (1848-1935) an engineering clerk for the colonies born in Bombay, India, (1) who married Cornelia Mary Collier (1850-1915) in 1880 in Bromley-by-Bow, Middlesex (2). William and Cornelia’s first child was Edmund Henry Lancaster (1881-1975) (3); the second child was Gilbert Collier Lancaster (1882-1950) (4) and the third child was Hugh de Zoete Lancaster (1883-1955) (5). Their fourth child, Humphrey, was a pupil in 1901 at Stubbington House School, a preparatory school in Crofton, Hampshire for entrance examinations into the Royal Navy under the headmastership at the time of Montague Henry Foster, who died aged 70 in 1913; Foster’s son, Montague Richard William Foster (1870-1935) took over the headmastership in 1903 and it was he who prepared Humphrey Lancaster to become a naval cadet. Humphrey Lancaster became a Midshipman in the Royal Navy on 15^th January 1904 and studied at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich (1908) learning seamanship, navigation, general subjects, pilotage, gunnery and torpedo; he was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant on 15^th March 1907, and in this rank he served on board HMS Shannon, an armoured cruiser from 10^th March 1908 until he was promoted to Lieutenant on 15^th March 1909; during December 1908 into January 1909, he assisted with rescue duties when British ships in the Mediterranean such as HMS Exmouth, HMS Minerva and HMS Euryalus were sent to Messina, Southern Italy to aid in the search and rescue of victims of the earthquake which hit Sicily; the earthquake and subsequent tsunami which occurred around 5.20 a.m. on Monday 28^th December, almost completely destroying Messina and the surrounding areas with a loss of life given as 120,000 people.

As a Lieutenant he served on HMS Cumberland from 1^st January 1910 and the cruiser, HMS Pioneer from 15^th December 1910; on 30^th November 1912 he served on HMS Pyramus and on 29^th November 1913 on HMS Naiad, a light cruiser engaged in mine laying. In April1915, Humphrey’s mother, Cornelia Mary Lancaster died after a long illness in her 65^th year at her home, Woodcote Mead, Epsom on Thursday 22^nd April; her funeral took place at Epsom Cemetery on Monday 26^th April after a service at the Parish Church, conducted by Rev. W. Bainbridge Bell (vicar) (6).

During the New Years’ Honours List for 1916, Lieutenant Humphrey John Lancaster was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (D.S.C.) for mine sweeping and mine laying operations. On 15^th March 1917 Humphrey was promoted to Lietenant-Commander.

Soon after this Humphrey became a member of the British Astronomical Association; he was elected a member on the 28^th March 1917 and it is highly likely that his father, William, who became a member of the B.A.A. on 30^th November 1892, put him forward as a candidate. At the time of his acceptance Humphrey’s address was given as Woodcote Mead, [Dorking Road] Epsom, his parent’s home address (his mother had died two years earlier) and his father, who was honorary secretary of the Epsom Cricket Club, still resided there (7).

From 7^th July 1920 he served on the battleship HMS Ramillies as a Lieutenant-Commander and on 1^st September 1926 at the same rank, on board HMS Erebus, a training ship and turret drill ship in Devonport. He was still on active duty during January 1929 and on 15^th March that year, he was promoted to the rank of Commander and subsequently retired; by November 1929, having retired from active duty, Commander Humphrey J. Lancaster D.S.C., R.N. became Secretary of the Association of Retired Naval Officers (A.R.N.O.) which had their headquarters at Empire House, 175 Piccadilly, London (8). Also that same year, Humphrey published his first novel – Barbarian Boy: the Story of a Young Slave in Ancient Rome [The Fortune Press. 1929, re-issued 1940]

In July 1933, Humphrey was appointed executor of his late Uncle, Arthur Charles Collier (born 1861) of Fonthill, Landsdown, Bath, who died on 3^rd July; Arthur was curator of the Holburne of Menstrie Art Museum in Bath. Humphrey’s address was given as 79, Telesmere Road, London (9).

As well as John Payne Collier (1789-1883) the Shakespearean disgraced scholar and John Pycroft Collier (born 1819) the Treasury Remembrancer and Deputy Paymaster for Ireland, there have been several notable and distinguished members related to the Lancaster family – Humphrey’s maternal uncle, George Herman Collier, born in London in 1856, entered the India Office in 1876 and became Director General of stores in the India Office and he was connected to the Department of High Commissioners; he was knighted in 1921 and retired the same year; he married Julia Mathilda Inglis (1861-1946), the daughter of Major-General Sir John Eardley Wilmot Inglis, KCB,  (1814-1862) and Julia Selina Thesiger (1833-1904) who were married in 1851 [Inglis was Commander of the British troops during the siege of Lucknow in 1857]. Sir George, Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire and Lady Collier of Water Farm, Coleman’s Hatch, Sussex, had several children: Evelyn Mary Collier (1888-1889), Lt. Ronald Inglis Collier, R.N., born 1890 who died at the Battle of Jutland aged 26 on 31^st May 1916 onboard HMS Tipperary; John Herman Collier (1892-1892), Grace Marian Collier (1893-1957) married Commander Charles H Woods in April 1920; Commander Kenneth Francis Collier, R.N., (1896-1980), married Sheila Bowden-Smith in May 1931; Mary Mildred Collier (1898-1972) and Charles Inglis Collier (1905-1993). Sir George Collier died on Thursday 20^th February 1941 at Hill Cottage, Forest Row.

Humphrey’s paternal grandmother, Rosina Maria Blenkins (1815-1882), had a brother, Major William Bazett Goodwin Blenkins, C.B., (1809-1852) of the 5^th Bombay Native Infantry and another brother, Surgeon-Major George Eleazar Blenkins (1813-1894) who was Assistant Surgeon of the Grenadier Guards (1838) and a very fine artist of anatomical subjects. Humphrey’s great, great grandfather was Captain William Norton Lancaster (1774-1838) of the Volunteer Infantry who married Mary Locke (1777-1823) at Walthamstow on 12^th December 1801 and had fourteen children: William James Lancaster (1802-1866), Robert Thomas Lancaster 91805-1974), Mary Lancaster (b. 1805), James Rigby Lancaster (1806-1848) of the East India Company Maritime Service; Frances Lancaster (1807-1939), Harriet Lancaster (1808-1874), Charles Lancaster (1810-1852), Elizabeth Lancaster (1812-1864), Amelia Lancaster (b.1813), Emma Lancaster (b. 1814), Caroline Susan Lancaster (1817-1909), Samuel Charles Lancaster (1819-1883), Henry Lancaster (b. 1820) and Humphrey’s great grandfather, Octavius Dobree Lancaster (1822-1849). Humphrey’s great, great Aunt, Caroline Susan Lancaster (born 1817) married Reverend Edward John May D.D., (10).

On Wednesday 11^th September 1935 Humphrey’s father, William Henry Lancaster died aged 87 at The Thicket, Oatlands Avenue, Weybridge, where he had been living with his nephew for nine months. He was ‘prominently associated with Epsom Cricket Club also many years member Christ Church choir…’ before he retired he was a consulting engineer to the Crown Colonies’. The funeral service took place in Epsom at Christ Church on the afternoon of Saturday 14^th September (11).

In 1937 Humphrey’s second novel True Yokefellow was published by The Fortune Press. In the author’s note (pp. 5-6), he cites the inspiration for the novel as the earthquake of 1908 which almost destroyed the town of Messina in Sicily; he says that he brought back with him a ‘rescued relic, an old iron hoop’ about ten-and-a-half inches in diameter and one-and-a-half inches deep’ with hinge and a ring’; outside the ring is stamped a number in Roman numerals: DCCLXXVII [777] and he says it was one of several found on the island and that it was an ‘old waist-band worn by slaves about 2000 years ago.’ The number 777 was not a date as he first thought but the number of the slave who wore it. He goes on to say that the relic had ‘frequently spoken to me in my sleep… on several occasions’, he then suggests that ‘some spirit in it has put the story of this book into my mind.’ He considers reincarnation as some factor for his familiarity with the scenes he sees and concludes that ‘the soul of Karlo has been in communication with me through the medium of this old rusty bit of iron.’ He ends his note by saying: ‘one thing worries me – I have no pretensions as a writer, why then should Karlo have chosen me as the instrument for bringing his tragic story to light? Again I cannot answer; it remains for me to do my best to fulfil what I conceive to be my duty. Of one thing I am certain – it is that we should be profoundly grateful for the teachings of Christ which have gradually, very gradually, rendered such appalling conditions of life impossible in a world now comparatively free from oppression.’ Alas, he was mistaken for just a few short years later the world would be devastated by war and some of the worst atrocities committed by humanity!

The volume is divided up into four books and an epilogue: Book I – Fool’s Paradise, Book II – Hostage, Book III – Slave, and Book IV – Fields of Mourning. The story concerns twelve year old Karlo, son of the Gaul chief, Theodoric and his wife Helga; Theodoric is away fighting the Romans and he is injured in the Battle of Aquae Sextiae while his wife and her uncle Johann take care of Karlo, his thirteen year old sister, Wanda and their eight year old brother, Eidel. On Theodoric’s return home he is convalescing when the Romans come looking for him – Helga has safely hidden Wanda and Eidel from the brutal hands of the Romans – and the Romans, sparing Theodoric, take Karlo into slavery. Karlo is first taken to the palace of Maximinus, the Governor of Verona and there he meets a fellow slave, a little older than himself, named Kris, son of Caudel, a barbarian lieutenant; the two become firm friends and consider themselves brothers. After three months at the palace they are sent to Rome and sold by Borcas, the slave-dealer. The two friends are separated, Kris is bought by Cimbar and Karlo is bought by Senator Casca, after first begging him to take him. Karlo is unhappy at the loss of Kris but soon settles into the way of things under the kindly Casca, despite the doubts of Casca’s wife, Titania. When his master, Casca has to leave on business, Karlo begs to go with him, but he is denied and must await the return of his master. Having been told a lie by fellow slave, Jago, that his master has been drowned at sea on his return voyage, Karlo and Jago attempt to escape. When Karlo is captured, he is branded upon the left cheek with the letter ‘F’ for ‘fugitive’ and sent back to the home of Casca where he is flogged for running away. When Casca eventually does return he is eager to see his favourite slave, Karlo, whom he has missed. Seeing the brand mark on his face and his beauty disfigured, believing him at first to be a thief, he shuns Karlo and on hearing that he attempted to run away he is greatly disappointed. He is then sent to Sicily to be sold on to another owner. His next master is Zonodicus, said to be the richest man in Sicily who has Karlo’s shoulder branded with the letter ‘Z’ to show ownership. Meanwhile, we learn that Kris has won the favour of his master, Cimbar Aurelius with his good looks and Cimbar considers Kris his own son. Learning of the whereabouts of his friend, Karlo, Kris visits Zenodicus in an attempt to buy Karlo under the pretence that he is Karlo’s brother, and he discovers that Karlo, now seventeen, has been taken to the civil prison for murdering a fellow slave and also that he has fathered a child. Zenodicus, being extremely rich, is not won over by the money Kris offers but he is taken by Kris’s handsome features and a bargain is struck that Kris must spend the night with Zenodicus, whom he finds repulsive and pay ten denari for Karlo to be freed into his service. Zenodicus keeps his word and Karlo is released and Kris leaves the house of Zenodicus at daybreak, as agreed; Kris is by nature homosexual and ‘many a night had he spent similarly, but never had he experienced this sense of pollution; he pictured himself as having just crawled out of a cesspool, and wondered whether Karlo would ever be able to understand the price for which he had been redeemed.’ (p. 228) Eager to see his young friend, whom he loved and protected at the palace of Maximinus, he finds before him a rude savage; Kris, believing he is possessed of a devil, strikes him upon the head and the physician attends to his injury. We then learn that after Karlo was taken by the Romans his uncle Johann died soon after and his father, Theodoric died during the great famine when the villagers burnt their home and the farm and although he fought bravely with one arm, was struck down dead. His mother and brother, Eidel, made it to safety but their fortunes are unknown… as for his sister, Wanda, she was captured and sold into slavery like Karlo, by the same master, Zenodicus; having lost one baby, and mothered five more only for the baby boy to be murdered, we are informed that it was Wanda whom Karlo found himself lying next to on a bed in Syracuse, both naked. Having told each their story, Karlo finds he desires his sister sexually and Wando, who is tired of her existence, agrees to give Karlo six nights of happiness together to satisfy him sexually and at the end of the six nights he must extinguish her life – this he agrees to. After the six passionate nights together, Wanda reminds him of his duty but he is unable to go through with it. Wanda stirs his anger with hurtful words and puts her hands around his throat and he puts his hands to her throat and after the struggle he is beside the limp, dead body of his sister. From such misery hope flourishes in the form of his young son, Palos, who gives Karlo a reason to live, and who in turn, learns of his father’s brave existence under the tyranny of Roman rule and his great friendship with uncle Kris.

The trials and tribulations of young Karlo and that of his family and his great friend Kris, are competently written and engaging. In fact, it is hard to understand why Humphrey Lancaster did not continue writing historical romances as he seems to have a flair for the subject and endows his characters with interest and evokes sympathy in the reader; a memoir of his naval exploits would have been an enjoyable and interesting volume. I have been unable to find evidence that he did publish anything more under a pseudonym which one would expect but it looks as if he really did have ‘no pretensions as a writer’ and lay down his pen.

The last three decades of Lancaster’s life seem to be a blank and it is almost as if he has been erased until records show that Humphrey John Lancaster died between January and March in 1973 at Sunnyhill Hotel, 14, Selwyn Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, where he had been residing for some time.

 

 

Published Works:

 

Barbarian Boy: The Story of a Young Slave in Ancient Rome. London. Fortune Press. 8vo. 7.5x5, 1929 [re-issued May 1940]. pp. 308.

True Yokefellow. London. Fortune Press. 8vo. 7.5x5, August 1937. pp. 256 [map of Italy 100 BC frontispiece and Author’s Note, pp. 5-6] with12 illustrated plates.

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. William Henry Lancaster was the son of the lavishly sounding Octavius Dobree Lancaster (1822-1849) and Rosina Maria Blenkins (1815-1882) who were married in Wimbledon, Surrey on 15^th March 1847. William’s sister, Mary Catherine Lancaster, born 1849, married Edward Keeling Johnston (born in Barnstaple, Devon, in1847) in Bromley, Kent in 1874; they had nine children: William Edward Johnston (1875-1936), Mary Edith Johnston (b. 1876), Charles Lancaster Johnston (1877-1903), Louise Maud Johnston (1879-1970), Edward Cyril Johnston (1880-1955), Arthur Kenneth Johnston (1883-1948), Margaret Catherine Johnston (b. 1885), Frederick Octavius Johnston (1889-1890) and Lucy Beatrice Johnston (1892-1893). Lieutenant Octavius Lancaster of the 14^th Bombay N.I. died in Poonah, India on 12^th May 1849, ‘in the 27^th year of his age’.
2. Cornelia Mary Collier (1850-1915) was the daughter of John Pycroft Collier, born 1819, who was the Treasury Remembrancer and Deputy Paymaster for Ireland, and Cornelia Ann Laura De Zoete, born 1820; they were married in St. Giles, London in 1849; they had the following children: Cornelia Mary Collier (1850-1915), Emily Emma Collier (b. 1852), John T De Z Collier (b. 1853), Robert William Collier (1855-1923), George Herman Collier (1856-1941), Mary Laura Collier (b. 1858), Edmund F Collier (b. 1859), Arthur Charles Collier (b. 1861) and Harry Samuel Collier (b.1864). Cornelia’s paternal grandfather was John Payne Collier (1789-1883) the notable Shakespeare scholar and critic who was later disgraced for having forged historical documents [The Perkins Folio, published 1852] and his reputation declined. John Payne Collier, barrister, married Mary Louisa Pycroft at St. Mary’s Church, Putney, London on 20^th August 1816.
3. Edmund Henry Lancaster was born in Epsom on 13^th March 1881 and christened on 20^th April 1881 in Shortlands, Kent; he married Alice Graham (1879-1966) in Mumbai, India on 10^th November 1905 and died in Yeovil, Somerset in April 1975.
4. Gilbert Collier Lancaster was born in Epsom on 11^th April 1882 who became an Inspecting Engineer for the colonies; during the Great War he served in the British Army as a temporary Lieutenant (22^nd February 1915) at the Army Ordnance Depot; he married Gladys Irene Whiting (1903-1977) in Surrey in 1942 and died at Guy’s Hospital, London on 13^th April 1950 aged 68.
5. Hugh de Zoete Lancaster was born in Epsom, Surrey on 8^th March 1883 and christened there on 7^th April 1883; in 1947 he married Ida Mary Murray in Cannock, Staffordshire and died in Ipswich, Suffolk on 11^th March 1955.
6. Surrey Advertiser. Saturday 1^st May 1915. p. 5.
7. Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 1917. p. 176. In a later Journal of the B.A.A. of 1923, Humphrey’s address is given as ‘HMS “Sandhurst”, Mediterranean Fleet’. p. 18.
8. see Naval Lists for specific years; also further naval appointments show that Humphrey J. Lancaster served on board HMS Halcyon in 1910 [Pall Mall Gazette. Thursday 7^th April 1910. Naval Appointments. p. 8] and HMS Victory in 1913 [Pall Mall Gazette. Thursday 12^th June 1913. p.12]
9. Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette. Saturday 23^rd September 1933. p. 14. ‘He left his household and personal effects to his wife, £25 to his nephew, Humphrey John Lancaster, executor, £25 each to his nephew, Hugh de Zoete Lancaster, his niece Violet Cornelia Koop… to his sisters, Emily Emma Collier and Mary Laura Collier and the survivor, and the residue upon trust for his wife for life and then equally between his nephews and nieces, the children of his brothers, Robert William Collier and George Herman Collier, and his sister, Cornelia Mary Lancaster or their issue.’ Arthur’s widow, Mary Winifred Collier died on 15^th January 1959. The niece mentioned, Violet Cornelia Koop was born Violet Cornelia Collier born 14^th April 1891 in Surrey, daughter of the architect Robert William Collier (1855-1923), ARIBA (and Tite Prize) 1881, FRIBA 1890 [Robert married Rosa Mary Hill (1866-1939) in Cornwall in February 1889 and had the following children: Sophie Rosa collier (1890-1904), Violet (b. 1891), John Robert Carlyon Collier, R.N. (1893-1944), Herbert Cecil De Z Collier (1897-1917) and Mary Caroline Collier (1908-1971), see note 2]. Violet married Gerard Godfrey Koop (1883-1961) in Kensington in1912; they had a child named Geraldine W Koop (b. 1919) but Violet separated from her husband Gerard in 1924 because of cruelty. Violet’s widowed mother, Rosemary Collier of 25 Woodstock Road, Bedford Park, sued her son-in-law in court for £425 maintenance at Redhill County Court on Wednesday 16^th May 1928. Violet died in December 1967 in Eton, Buckinghamshire.
10. Reverend Edward John May D.D., (born c. 1817) who from King’s College London, went up to Worcester College, Oxford on 24^th January 1839,aged 21 (BA 1842, 4^th class mathematics, MA 1845) and held various curacies and scholastic appointments; he was ordained in 1843 and made priest the following year in Norfolk; curate of Litcham, Norfolk 1843-1844, Head Master of Kentish Town College School, curate St. Lawrence, Reading, Clapham 1850-1851, Head Master Brewer’s school, Tower Hill, London 1852-1865, Head Master Nottingham College School curate and curate of Strelley and Bilborough, Nottingham, 1865-1868; Licensed to St. Andrew’s, Hastings 1868-1882 and curate of Chertsey 1884-1887. Rev. May died on Christmas Eve, 1902 at Ivy House, Chertsey, aged 85. [Crockford’s Clerical Directory. 1893. p. 900, and various newspapers, 1902]
11. Surrey Advertiser. Saturday 14^th September1935.p. 11.