The South African Connection

One branch of the Lucas Family emigrated to South Africa.  I’m sure there is more information to be found as there are descendants of this family still in South Africa.   If any of them read this then I’d be happy to be contacted.

William Lucas of Stapleton Hall had a number of children, including another William Lucas (1818-1903), who was a corn merchant and farmed near Billericay, Essex  He had a large family as well and a number of them emigrated.

William (Cloudsley) Lucas and Maria Johanna de Beer

The eldest son, another William (Cloudsley) (b.1840), emigrated to South Africa in 1862 age of 22. The family in Essex was very large and when he departed his mother Mary Ann was still pregnant with the last child, James Rudd Lucas, born later on in 1862. William travelled to South Africa on an assisted passage on the ship Adelaide, leaving Southampton March 1, 1862 and arriving at Port Elizabeth three months later on June 7, 1862. [1]

The circumstances of his emigration are a little unclear as he later is described as of the Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry, and H.E.I.S.C. (Honourable East India Service Company).

According to the Lucas Book he settled at Rustenberg in the Transvaal, and married Maria Johanna de Beer in 1872, ten years after he arrived, and “became a Burgher of that State”.[2]

Their first child, William Reginald Hall Lucas, was born the next year on July 10, 1873. Then many more children follow, eight girls, and two more boys, the last one, Millicent Louise, born in 1891.

For this family I searched the online index to the Death Notices which is now on FamilySearch. It gives the name of the deceased as well as the name of their spouse, and in the case of the women gives their maiden name. In this way I almost immediately found William Lucas and Maria Johanna de Beer. He died in 1895, and she lived until 1932. The death was registered in the Natal District.  In 2003, Sue McKay, a kind volunteer for the South Africa list, emailed me copies of the registrations.

The first one is the Death Notice for  William, who died in 1895. Then we have his widow, Maria Johanna, who died in 1932. She died without enough assets to attract tax, so there goes the de Beers diamond connection!

William (Cloudsley) Lucas — The Cloudsley Name

The big surprise with William is that in his death notice the person submitting the information gives his name not as William Lucas, but as William Cloudsley Lucas.

This is really surprising for a few reasons. First of all, there is no one in the Lucas or Hall family with the name Cloudsley, or any other variation of the name. The Lucas book has been fairly accurate about names, especially ones of that time period. It is possible that whoever compiled the book was not close to that branch of the family, but if that was the case how would they have come up with the birth dates and even death dates of some of the infant children of William and Maria Johanna.

Another possibility is that the Lucas Book is wrong and that it is a completely different fellow here. Against that idea is that several of his children have distinct family names, as in William Reginald Hall Lucas (mothers maiden name), and Joseph Lawrence Rudd Lucas (grandmother’s maiden name).

The final possibility is that, for reasons unknown, he just assumed the name Cloudsley as part of his name.  In the absence of any other information this is what I am assuming he did.  A mystery to clear up.  I think there are Lucas descendants in South Africa lurking on the net and I would love to hear from them if they have more information.   The name Cloudsley was used as a given name in some of the descendants and it would be great to hear from them.

Potchefstroom

After a bit of digging  I found, Millicent Louise, the last daughter of William and Maria Johanna. Her name was reversed from the Lucas book, and the year of birth was one year out, but the birth day and month were the same. The birth place was given as Potchefstroom, Transvaal. Now I had a more specific location for the family.

William Lucas and Thomas Ayres

In 2003 when I did a Google search on Potcheftstroom and Lucas I came up with this, from the site zestforbirds.co.za/ayres

Ayres was very involved in the social and cultural life of Potchefstroom. At one point in time, he even operated a brewery for a couple of years making Ayres XX Pale Ale. Many people spoke highly of this beer and it is rumoured that a Capt. William Cloudsley Lucas of the Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry which was stationed at Rustenberg wrote to Ayres saying that the beer had cured him of “…nightly sweatings, terrible affections in the lumbar regions, and a chronic costiveness that had lasted eighteen years.”

[Dec 2019. The site is still on the internet but the page has been removed.  Thomas Ayres was a well known South African ornithologist who lived in Potchefstroom.  If William Lucas described himself as a naturalist surely they would have known each other.

“Send me another octave.”

The advertisement below is taken from Guide to the Transvaal, by Charles J. Becker, available in full on Archive.org.

From: Guide to the Transvaal, by Charles J. Becker

From Guide to the Transvaal, by Charles J. Becker, 1878.   Note that the spelling of Cloudsley is a little different and that the abbreviation should be H.E.I.C.S., for Honorable East India Company Service. and places William in the right place, as given in the Lucas Book.  According to Wikipedia an octave (unit) is a British unit of volume used for measuring whisky. It is approximately 16 gallons, so William Lucas liked his beer!  If the book was published in 1878 his “nightly sweatings”, etc., that had lasted eighteen years would go back to before he arrived in South Africa, and could lend a bit of weight to the Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry and be something he picked up in India.

Maps

Once I started doing this I realized my geography of South Africa was a little hazy, so here are some maps. This one shows the political divisions around 1885. Potchefstroom is located on the southern boundary of Transvaal Province, about halfway between the two lakes. Rustenburg is located about 70km northeast of it. Both are about 70km from Johannesburg.

And this one shows the present day divisions. Note that Natal is now called KwaZuluNatal. This is the area that the Beall boys (William’s three nephews) came to around the turn of the century. They lived (and were buried) north of Durban in a small town near the Tugela River.

Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry

Next I did a search on “Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry”, and found that apparently it only existed for a few years, from 1857 until it was disbanded in 1861.  It was also very small, with under 300 men. There a few obvious questions of course.  What was William Lucas doing in India, and more specifically with the Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry?   And why on earth would the Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry be stationed in Rustenberg, Transvaal?   I think that mention is an error.   Of course the other thought is that the whole Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry itself is a red herring, and that he never was a member, or was a member of some other military unit that we will never know of.

If it was disbanded in 1861, it is possible he had left England at the age of 17 in 1857 to join the army and after his return to England (in 1861?) he applied for assisted passage and left for South Africa in 1862.  All pretty speculative.

Have not been able to determine if William left England to join the army and spent a few years in it before emigrating to South Africa.

The Children of William and Maria Johanna Lucas

William Reginald Hall Lucas b.1873, the first child of William and Maria Johanna married Maria Elizabeth Eveline Shaw in1897 .  So far have not found a death date for him.   There are descendants so maybe one day I’ll hear from them.

The next child, Maria Aveline, b.1875, married Frederick Samuel Park, and lived until 1952. The next two daughters, Constance and Ellen, born in 1876 and 1877 both died before they were a year old. Then we have Mary Ann Emily Coral, born in 1879. She does not appear in the Death Notices index, so she must have lived past about 1900, but not long enough to have a will or an estate. Then comes Ella Winifred, b.1881, who married Robertus Adolph Bernard Mussman, and lived until 1961.

A boy was born next, in 1883, Joseph Lawrence Rudd Lucas, but he died in 1900 at the age of 17.   The death notice is now on FamilySearch.  He died at home, and his brother was attending.

Avis Irene was born in 1884, and she married Charles George French, and died in 1964. The next boy was Charles Henry Gustavus, born in 1886. Here we have the first criminal in the family, as he was charged with something in 1927. He did marry though, and lived until 1954.

The last two children were girls, Johanna Frances in 1889, who married twice, and died in 1943.

Millicent Louise, born in 10 Sept 1892,  also as Louise Millicent Lucas, born 10 Sept 1891. She was married in 1913 to Walter Ernest Dickens. He was also a first generation South African, his father coming from Northampton. She does not appear in the Death Notices index. [Check this again]

References:

[1]Bull, Esme. “Aided Immigration from Britain to South Africa”. I haven’t actually seen this publication, but I got an email from Sue Mackay