Family Background

Joseph Lucas was descended from an old Quaker family of Hitchin, Hertfordshire. In the seventeenth century, at the very start of the Quaker movement, William Lucas, a maltster and brewer, joined the Society of Friends, and from that time the Lucas family of Hitchin and many of their descendants and relations were both prominent members of the Society of Friends and of the local community.

Although the branch of the family that Joseph Lucas descended from left the Quakers fairly early on, most likely through “marrying out”, and neither his father nor his grandfather were born in Hitchin, the Quaker connection and clannishness seem to have carried on through several generations, so that to this day Hitchin is regarded in a somewhat reverential manner as the family seat.

Joseph Lucas Senior

Joseph Lucas was named after his father, another Joseph Lucas. His father married his first cousin, Sarah Lucas Judkins (who therefore became Sarah Lucas Lucas!) in 1835. Throughout their lives they had sixteen children, twelve of whom lived to maturity, and were married 68 years! They died within six months of each other in 1903. Joseph Lucas senior was born in 1811 at Stapleton Hall, Hornsey, North London, which at that time was rural, and Stapleton Hall was a farm. In 1835, the year of his marriage, an uncle died leaving him the property in Upper Tooting. The large house they lived in was named Stapleton House after the original farm Stapleton Hall Farm. On today’s map of London there is a Stapleton Hall Road in Hornsey at the former location of Stapleton Hall, and a Stapleton Road in Upper Tooting at the location of Stapleton House.

In Victorian times Upper Tooting was a lovely rural suburb of south of London, with many large homes and many in the professional class living there. Several of the Lucas children married into other families in Upper Tooting. Joseph Lucas senior was a solicitor with offices in the heart of London on Surrey Street, and two of his sons, Frederick William and Edgar, followed him into the profession. A third son, Charles was articling at the time of his premature death.

One son, Edgar Lucas, married Alice Erichsen, the daughter of Hermann Erichsen. Hermann Erichsen and his wife were from Denmark and he had originally come to England as an employee of Great Northern Telegraph in Newcastle, the terminus of an undersea telegraph cable. He later moved to London as the principal British representative of Great Northern Telegraph, residing at Upper Tooting. Under the name Mrs. E. Lucas, Alice Erichsen Lucas did one of the first and most popular translations of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales from Danish to English. Both she and her sister Nelly Erichsen continued to do translation over many years. So our Joseph Lucas had a Danish sister-in-law living very close by in Upper Tooting, which was no doubt a great help in his study of Scandinavian languages and Yorkshire dialects.

One of the daughters, Margaret Lucas, married into another family from Upper Tooting. George Augustin Macmillan was the son of Alexander Macmillan, one of the two brothers who founded Macmillan & Co., Publishers. George Macmillan had connections to Yorkshire, especially in the Danby area, near Cleveland, not far from Redcar, the family home of the wife of Joseph Lucas, Elizabeth Storie Lucas. The Macmillans lived at Botton Hall, near Danby. While there he was friends with the local vicar, Rev. Atkinson, who was the incumbent for many years. Atkinson wrote of his times in a book Forty Years in a Moorland Parish. The second edition has a 25 page introduction written by George Macmillan. Like Joseph Lucas, Atkinson was also interested in local dialects and published a glossary of local words, cited in his Studies in Nidderdale, published in 18.. [check date].

Joseph Lucas’s other sisters also “married well”, two of them spending many years overseas with husbands in the Colonial Office.

Professional Life

Joseph Lucas had a most chequered professional life. While his father and two of his brothers were solicitors, he became a geologist. The reasons and motivation for this are not known.  As it turned out he was a classic Victorian and obviously had an interest in and spent much time on subjects such as geology and natural history, dialects and languages, especially from Yorkshire and Scandinavia, in gypsy life, genealogy, and poetry. The one photograph of him is almost a stereotype of a Victorian naturalist, wearing a rather worn tweed jacket and sitting in front of a glass fronted bookcase topped by a stuffed bird.

He started out as a geologist, mapping in Yorkshire for the Geological Survey. After his ignominious end there, he spent the rest of his professional life as a consultant on underground water supplies and wells.

He translated a number of works w

Geological Survey

In 18.. he joined the Geological Survey. [This part is covered by Mather]

Oxford English Dictionary

Joseph Lucas had a long standing interest in dialects and languages, There are 21 entries in the OED with examples contributed by him, including a citation referring to him as the first person to use the term hydrogeology in its present sense. All the other entries in the OED refer to words used in dialect in Northern England.

Marriage

In 1872 Joseph Lucas married Elizabeth Storie MacKean, daughter of John MacKean, of Redcar, Yorkshire. The marriage took place at St. Peter’s, Pimlico, now more commonly known as St. Peter’s, Eaton Square. He listed his address as the Grosvenor Hotel, most likely to fulfill a requirement of living within the parish. Under “Rank or Profession” he lists the rank Esquire, rather than a profession. The witnesses to the marriage are his brother, Frederic and Elizabeth Storie’s sister Mary MacKean.

MacKean Family

The MacKean family was originally from Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Sometime between 1861 and 1872 they left Inchinnan and moved to Redcar, on the coast of North Yorkshire. ESL’s father was a timber merchant, although one wonders why the move to Redcar. Possibly he was more or less retired and had connections with the shipping industry from Middlesborough or Stockton on Tees.

As far as I know, for some reason Elizabeth Storie MacKean used Storie as her given name. I don’t have any written evidence of it, just that in the family she was always referred to as Storie. (This conflicts with the 1901 census where she is listed as Ellen S Lucas.) Storie was her mother’s maiden name. At the time of her marriage Storie’s father was listed as residing at Picton House, Redcar. The 1871 census for Redcar lists Elizabeth MacKean as widow [Note: Check this out. Have another look at the 1871 census]. however John MacKean was present at Elizabeth Storie’s wedding to Joseph Lucas in London in 1872. ES’s sister Mary MacKean, married Eleazor Biggins Emerson in 1876. In the 1890 Post Office Directory there are several Emerson’s, including EB Emerson, who is listed as of Picton House, Redcar. There are several Emerson’s in the area at that time. The daughter of EB and Mary Emerson, Ethel Emerson, sang with the Sisters Lucas Quartet and Percy Grainger.

We don’t really know a lot about the MacKean family except for ESL’s nephew John MacKean and niece Ethel Emerson. John MacKean was a bachelor; he refused to have a telephone in case it rang when it was inconvenient for him to answer it, and he always had two umbrellas, one for rain, and another, precisely folded, that was only used for hailing taxis.

Children

There were nine children in the family and with JL’s chequered career one wonders how he managed to support them all, especially with so many daughters who never married. Like their father, they all had rather odd lives.

There were six daughters. The oldest, ……… The next daughter…………. The four younger daughters were musical, and went to Prague and Vienna and studied strings. When they returned they formed a quartet, The Sisters Lucas, and played socially for a few years in London, including some concerts with Percy Grainger. Eventually after two of the sisters died, Maud and Patience played for many years with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Open Air [get the name right].

The oldest son Joseph remains a bit of a mystery. In the 1901 census he is listed as an actor, which could mean practically anything, and after that he disappears from view until 1956 as an entry in my grandmother’s diary that a telegram had been received announcing his death. Obviously some secret has gone to the grave, and either he was too unorthodox for the family or there was some falling out which was never resolved.

The next son was Claud Vernal Warter Lucas. Lots of names! Not sure where the Claud came from. Warter was also a given name of one of JL’s brothers. There was a Rev. Warter who was the incumbent in West Tarring, Worthing, where the Lucas family had a long association. Claud was born just after the death of Rev. Warter. Still haven’t found any direct connection though. And as for Vernal, it was no doubt because the birth was March 25^th, just after the vernal equinox.

The youngest son was Ronald Fairfax Lucas. My father has the same name, and amazingly, he does not know why both he and his father have this name, and over the years I have still not found any clue as to why the name Fairfax was chosen.

Economics

With JL’s varied life one wonders how he managed to support his ever growing family. At first there would have been income from the Geological Survey. After he left that and was on his own there couldn’t have been much money coming in. There were bits of property here and there, and in 1885 I found a record of the sale of property in Heene, near Worthing. JL also owned some property in Hornsey which was listed in the will he drew up in 1912 after his wife died. This was probably sold long before he died in 1926.

The daughter’s musical training in Prague and Vienna would have cost money, and my hunch is that the Macmillan’s had something to do with it, although we’ll never know for sure.

Residences

Over the years JL lived in several places. He was born at Stapleton House, Upper Tooting, a large house on a separate piece of property. After he married he had two different addresses on Defoe Road, sometimes listed as Tooting Graveney. I suspect these were rented as around this time the whole Tooting area was developed in great tracts of row housing which completely changed the character of the area. It isn’t known at what point Stapleton House was torn down to make way for a tube station!

One of his daughters was born at Sandsend Yorkshire in 18… That would at least mean that his wife was there, but not necessarily JL! The rest of the children were born at Tooting Graveney, except for the one child that did not survive. He was born at Heene, West Tarring, Sussex.

Ronald Fairfax Lucas

Economic reasons were no doubt at the heart of my grandfather Ronald Fairfax Lucas’s emigration to Canada in 190? [Check the year] I was told “There was no place for him in England.” in that most English of tones. I was also told that there was some connection with the Macmillan’s and that he either was sponsored by them and/or that he had a letter of introduction to people at the Bank of British North America. He was accompanied by his cousin Will Macmillan.

After RFL came to Canada he never maintained close contact with his family for reasons that we don’t know. There were no stories of family acrimony, more just a lack of communication which apparently was never really revived. Nevertheless I do find it rather odd that so little information has trickled down to the present. I’m convinced that there is some secret that has gone to the grave that we’ll never know, and that certainly doesn’t matter any more, and it is such a pity not to know more about the family.

RFL was a bit like his own father, and never really had a regular career, but he too, was extremely well read, liked languages, was interested in many things. Although he came to Canada as a young man of 19 or 20, he never really became Canadian and seemed to be more English than the English.

Jane Lucas

JL was my great grandfather. Over the years as I’ve learned more and more about him I alternate between respect and admiration for him, and annoyance that he couldn’t get along with people and lead a more normal life. I look at JL and see myself (same initials, too!): never really stuck to a career in the usual sense, interested in everything, and knowledgeable about a great variety of (largely useless) things. Unlike JL I have the great gift of being able to get along with just about anyone, but I do find that my insatiable curiosity and interest in the world around me leads me astray, and I don’t get things done. Like JL, finances are always a bit risky.