Charles Lionel Briggs

Charles Lionel Briggs
Born	1877 (1877)
Died	1922 (aged 44–45)
Residence	42 Spilsby Road, Boston
Education	Framlingham College, Suffolk; BA, Liverpool University College; MA, Harris Manchester College, Oxford (1902)
Years at BGS	1919-1922
Departments	English
Subjects	English

Charles Lionel Briggs was a teacher of English at Boston Grammar School between 1919 and 1922.

Before BGS

Charles Briggs was born 1877 and was educated at Framlingham College, Suffolk. He gained a BA at Liverpool University College and an MA at Harris Manchester College, Oxford (1902). He travelled to Russia and Canada and was with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War.

Adventures of Lionel Briggs

An article written by Philip H Briggs (Charles Lionel Briggs' son) and published in the Spring 2006 issue of The Old Bostonian

Charles Lionel Briggs was born in 1877 into a family that earlier had received much unwanted publicity due to his Grandfather, in 1864, being the first person to be murdered on a railway train. The murderer was the first person to be convicted on circumstantial evidence.

Lionel received his education at Wikipedia:Framlingham CollegeA in Suffolk where, in 1892, he won the Packard Prize for Science. In spite of this, his love of literature led him to become an undergraduate at Liverpool University College, where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1899. Thereafter, his feelings for the humanities steered him to Manchester College, Oxford as a student for the Unitarian Ministry and he obtained his Master of Arts degree in 1902.

Known always as Lionel or Leo, he then returned to Liverpool in charge of the Domestic Mission but after a year working there, at the age of 26, he felt that the Ministry was not his vocation, and he became interested in gardening, intensive horticulture and beekeeping.

While he was at Manchester College, Oxford, he had heard Count Vladimir Grigoryevich Tchertkoff speaking about the famine in Russia, and Lionel’s deep humanitarian leanings had led him to become interested in Tolstoyan ideas, so he got in touch with Tchertkoff, who invited him to come and assist with horticulture and secretarial work at Christchurch, Hampshire where, at this time (1903), Tchertkoff, was living together with his wife and son, Dima. Although Tchertkoff was a friend of Alexander III of Russia, because of his anti-government views, and help to the Doukhobors, he had been banished from Russia in 1897, so he had come to the Christchurch area where his mother, Countess Tchertkoff, had for some time owned an estate. The house was named ‘Slavanka’, which means ‘Place of Glory’.

Here, at nearby Tuckton House, and in adjacent property which had earlier been a water-works pumping station and was well suited for the installation of some quite large printing presses, Tchertkoff had set up the Free Age Press. As literary executor to Count Leo Tolstoy, who was a close friend, he was publishing cheap, non-copyright editions of Tolstoy's works after their translation into various languages for distribution in Europe.

Life for Lionel at Tuckton House was not all work and no play. Football was much enjoyed and Tchertkoff’s team often used to play the ‘local lads’ on a pitch adjacent to the old water-works for which Tchertkoff had arranged illumination for use after dark; here perhaps were played some of the country’s first ‘floodlit matches’ !

Now under Lionel’s guidance, much of the land of these properties continued to be well utilised to produce the food needed by the colony of some thirty or so exiles from Russia and other European countries, comprising largely professors, journalists, doctors and university students, who were living and working there at this time. This colony included Countess Tchertkoff's sister Olga and her two children. She had married Tolstoy's son Andrei, but left him and her home at Toptikovo Tula on account of his infidelity.

It was to this estate at Toptikovo that Lionel went in May 1904 on a visit to Countess Tchertkoff's brother, Josia Dieterichs, who was managing the estate for his sister.

This visit was ostensibly to help with English ideas of horticulture, Mr Dieterichs having been to Christchurch and seen how the land there was being cultivated, but really it was to visit Yasnaya Polyana to see Tolstoy (who was only able to be referred to as "my friend" in any letters to or from Russia), to get information from him regarding his wishes for the rights of publication of his works after his death, and also to see certain Russian publishers. This had to be done in secrecy with some documents needing to be sewn into clothing to avoid observation by the military ‘inspections’ at the frontier, where many books and other documents (particularly those bearing Tolstoy’s name) were liable to arbitrary seizure.

In May 1905 Lionel Briggs again visited Russia, this time accompanied by Tchertkoff, who had been given permission to return for a short visit of about three weeks. It was a strange situation in which the senior General responsible for seeing that exiles were exiled was also a longstanding close friend of Tchertkoff, and so could grant him permission to return for a short visit, during which time they had several friendly encounters.

Tchertkoff was eventually allowed to return permanently in 1908, and Lionel continued to concentrate on intensive horticulture in England until in 1913 he took these skills with him to teach them in New Brunswick, Canada. In 1915 he voluntarily gave his services to assist with the Field Ambulance of the RAMC and thus experienced the hell of trench warfare conditions. On being demobbed in 1919 he came to Boston Grammar School as English master where, according to E.E. Hall, “He was very successful, having great influence over the boys.” No doubt he had many an adventurous tale to tell them!

Regrettably, his period of teaching at Boston was short, for he died suddenly, barely 45 years of age, on 29th June 1922, leaving his widow, Hilda, with a seventeen month old son, who has now compiled this short summary.

See Also

• Boston Grammar School Staff
• Floreat Bostona (book)
• Houses