Lucas Terrier Club

Enid Gridley was born in Saltburn-By-The-Sea in Yorkshire, England in 1909, she was the third child of Arnold and Mabel Gridley.

The Gridley family had what could be described as a comfortable lifestyle until the General Strike and Stock Exchange crash when the family home had to be sold and the family moved to a much smaller house in Buckinghamshire. It was at that time Enid began her career in dogs by going to train with Mrs Dixon of the Gunthorpe Cairn terriers who rented premises to Sir Jocelyn Lucas.

After a few years Enid left Mrs Dixon in Rutland and joined Sir Jocelyn as kennel manageress. In 1936 Enid married Alex (Bill) Plummer and left the Ilmer kennels to live with her husband at Harpenden. At this time she took part as a navigator in the Tulip Rally and the Monte Carlo, the latter only once as she found it so awesome.

In 1939 it was agreed she would reduce the number of dogs she had under her own affix (Markygate), though remaining in partnership with Sir Jocelyn. She then joined the Commer Company at Luton, Bedfordshire, England driving Commer lorries carrying spare parts to the RAF and Royal Ordnance factory depots all over England. In four years she drove heavy Commer war trucks around 200,000 miles.

In 1944 the Plummers moved to Bonners, at Pepperstock, near Luton, Bedfordsdhire, which was a house with enough land for large kennels and at this time she returned to Ilmer kennels.

Whilst Sir Jocelyn Lucas took an interest in the running of the kennels and breeding of the dogs, the day to day work was, by and large, done by The Hon Mrs Plummer and her kennel staff. Some 25 Sealyham bitches lived at Markygate while Ilmer housed another 40 - 50 bitches plus 13 stud dogs, beagles, a basset hound and a black spaniel bitch that was mated to a beagle to produce 'speagles' which had superb noses and a voice. The 'speagle' would run with the pack so that the whipper-in could locate the pack at any time.

By the late 1940s Sir Jocelyn and Enid Plummer were disenchanted with the extremes they felt were appearing in the Sealyham terrier. Sir Jocelyn noted that he and Enid loathed the enormous beards, which he described as being 'like Billy goats', and detested the fashion of shaving necks which reminded them of skinned rabbits, a fad which had become popular with show Sealyhams exhibitors at that time. He said that enormous beards were only possible if a profuse body coat was also grown. The result was that unless continually in the hands of the barber the dog looked like an unkempt sheep. The Ilmer kennels tried to breed Sealyhams with hard working jackets, with sufficient whisker to be attractive but with coats that always looked presentable even if never trimmed at all. He was also unhappy about the excessive amount of bone some show bred Sealyhams carried, he described them as 'cloddy little carthorses', and despaired at the unpredictable temperament that was creeping into the breed, noting that the Ilmer Sealyhams worked as a pack so they had to be good tempered and non fighters or transportation and hunting would be impossible.

By the late 1940s the divergence of type between the show type Sealyhams and the Ilmer Sealyhams was most apparent and the small Ilmer bitches experienced great difficulty in whelping when mated to show bred dogs. The decision was then made to find a suitable breed of terrier to which these bitches could be mated. By this method he would produce his ideal, which was 'a small, unexaggerated, sporting terrier'. Sir Jocelyn also had an interest in breeding Fresian cattle and believed that if Fresians were first mated to Hereford bulls, which would result in calves smaller than fully pedigreed Fresians, the cows would have less difficulty in calving to Fresian bulls at a later date, and this possibly influenced his thinking with regards to his Sealyham bitches. However, it should be pointed out that there are suggestions that the initial mating occurred accidentally. Sir Jocelyn refuted this claim in print, saying it was a deliberate action. It is entirely possible that the initial mating WAS an accident but, if this was the case, Sir Jocelyn was astute enough to realise how fortuitous this mating was and it is of little consequence if he later chose to publicise the venture as a deliberate hybridisation.

Sir Jocelyn had met Jack Reade, who kept a strain of tiny, rough-coated dogs which were the forebears of the Norwich and Norfolk terriers (the Norwich being the prick-eared variety and the Norfolk having drop-ears). He greatly admired the agility and tremendous scenting ability these terriers displayed though he was rather dismayed at their propensity to fight.

Therefore, when it came to deciding upon the breed of small terrier to use on his bitches there really was only one choice - the drop-eared Norwich terrier. This terrier had a hard working jacket, an ear carriage that suited the drop-eared Sealyham, was sporting, energetic and best of all was smaller than the Ilmer bitches - qualities the breed retains today. The sense of using a drop-eared dog is confirmed by 'Dog World's' Norfolk terrier breed notes writer Mrs Marjorie Bunting. In her notes of 18/2/94 when talking of her early days in the two breeds when they were still registered as one, she say, "Nobody told me you shouldn't cross the two types because poor ear carriage was often the result - the reason the breed became two breeds of course."

An approach was made to Miss M. S. S. Macfie (Colonsay) and a small dog called Colonsay Cuffer was purchased. This transaction was later recalled in a letter published in Dog World (20/2/87) from Mrs M. Marshall of Small Dole, who worked for Miss Macfie and remembered Sir Jocelyn arriving at the kennels to look at two Norfolk dogs, Colonsay Cuffer and Colonsay Dicky Flutter. According to Mrs Marshall, Sir Jocelyn chose Cuffer as he was the smaller of the two. Sir Jocelyn told Mrs Marshall that he intended creating a breed of terrier that he would call the Lucas terrier. She says, 'The main colouring of the cross seemed to be a sandy red, with a white vest and feet and with docked tails they looked very smart and attractive.'

Sir Jocelyn's advertisement in the Dog World Annual of 1967 relates that the puppies were charming and one of the crossbred dogs was mated back to a Sealyham. This would have produced a proportion of white bodied puppies with coloured markings, a colour pattern still found in the Lucas terrier but they are not so common as the mainly coloured ones.

In the early 1980s Enid Plummer retired to Rose Cottage at Bodieve in Cornwall with the remainder of the Lucas terrier kennel and a Norfolk called Osmor Trevor. Brigitte Phillips was already living in Bodieve and Enid's close friend Frances Lee moved with her to Rose Cottage. Frances and Enid lived there together until 1986 when Enid died of complications after she had had a leg amputated. Her last Lucas terrier, Plummer's Jocelyne, took pride of place at her funeral.

Frances remains at Rose Cottage with two Norfolk terriers which she occasionally shows - her last Lucas terrier, Plummer's Bramble, having died in 1998.