My great-grandfather Charles Thomas Lucas (CTL 1820-1895) is a pivotal figure in my family’s history. For he was able to make the leap from his modest origins as the son of a small scale London builder, to become one of the leading contractors of his time and a notable country gentleman. A success which was signified by the purchase of a handsome estate in Sussex called Warnham Court, where…
Astrology, historically reputed as serious science, has largely declined in modern regard. If anyone besides Oedipus ever had reason to bewail the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune it was James Jonathan Hughes Delight Lucas, my great-great grandfather. Unfortunately when I was a young man I lacked sufficient curiosity or close contact with my uncle Joe to press him for his knowledge of the voluminous business and…
In my last blog - Lucas Beginnings – I traced my Lucas family back to 1630 and introduced my direct ancestor James Lucas (1747-?) who presents something of a genealogical mystery. I know he married a Quaker named Mary Delight, but there is no record of his marriage and no census records apart from his birth date. The explanation is that Quakers did not marry in church but often…
Do my Lucas family origins stretch all the way back to pre-Roman Italy? There is a theory that the surname Lucas originates from Lucania, a Greek colony occupying land between the heel and toes of southern Italy from about 500-001BC, before it was beaten up by the Romans and suffered a diaspora across the Mediterranean? The occurrence of Lucas - in differing forms in many European tongues - suggests…