In a message dated 8/4/2009 1:30:08 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, brumlist@ajwade.co.uk writes: chris cole wrote: > Can anyone advise me on discovering the history of the site on which > Joseph Lucas built his factory in Great King Street? I know he took it > over in 1872 but I am interested on the people who owned it earlier than > that. That's not quite the whole story. 1872 was the year in which Joseph Lucas moved house from Carver Street to 209 Great King St. No. 209 was near the corner of GKS and New John St. - it wasn't the site of the big GKS factories. In 1875 the first Lucas factory - the Tom Bowling Lamp Works - was established in Little King St. Just to add a bit more history to this thread .. My husband. David Fisher, first worked in Gt King Street, Floor G6 Gas Turbine Shop 1960, then they closed that shop and he moved to Shaftmoor Lane to BW5. He left there in 1969 when we emigrated to the States. His father Charles Fisher worked in Gt King Street, K4 Maintenance Tool Room, and was Chairman of the Joint Shop Stewards Committee and Deputy Convener and Shop Steward of the Tool Room. He was also Treasurer of the local AEU Union Branch which met in the Lord Nelson Pub. The Convener was Jack Allen, who was given an honor from the Queen, and OBE or such. Upon his death in Nov 1975, the funeral cortege of around 50 cars, briefly stopped outside the factory in Gt King Street, so that workers could pay respects. Georgina Fisher