Benjamin Lucraft

Benjamin Lucraft (28 November 1809 – 25 September 1897) was a famous craftsman chair-carver in London where his radical inclinations led him to be involved in many political movements.

Lucraft was a public advocate of Chartism and a founder member, and sometime chairman, of the "General Council of First International" of the International Workingmen's Association. He was the only working-class man elected to the first London School Board in 1870 where he campaigned for free education for all, among other issues. He was a member, or officer, in a wide number of radical political movements of the 19th century.

In 1874 he stood for election in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and in 1880 for Finsbury; in both elections he was unsuccessful but was one of the forerunners of the Lib-Lab candidates who had their first electoral success in 1874. He died in 1897.

Benjamin Lucraft's family had settled in Broadclyst, Devon, in 1781 when his grandfather William Lucraft married Esther Newton in the parish church on 10 December 1781. Esther was the daughter of William Newton and Esther Leight, both Broadclyst families and Esther's grave still stands in the churchyard after her death in 1831, aged 71. The family had moved from the South Hams area of Devon in the 17th century.

Lucraft was born on 28 November 1809, in Exeter, the second son of Lucraft and his wife Mary. His father Benjamin came from Broadclyst where he been a wood worker and possibly a chair-carver. Lucraft was baptised at St. Paul church Exeter on 16 December 1809.

In 1819 around the age of 10 Lucraft was apprenticed in husbandry to his grandfather William according to his apprentice indenture. Some sources suggest that he was a ploughboy and was apprenticed in cabinet making at 14 years. The only story from this time is that he was later in life described as a boy reading the newspaper to his adult working colleagues on the farms where they worked.

By 1830 Lucraft was living with his parents in Taunton in a house on North Street, and later on East Leech Street. Either his father or he himself worked as a cabinet maker at a workshop on the east side of High Street where he paid a rate of £7.10s 0d, qualifying for a vote. Lucraft and his family were cabinet makers and were also listed at High Street in 1830. While they were there the Poor relief gave his father 1s 1d in January 1830 and 1s 7d in February 1830 from the Poor Rate for buying stock.

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