Sarah Lucas (née Beesley)

Widow and trustee of the West India merchant, plantation owner and slave-factor Philip Monoux Lucas (q.v.)

1. The wife of Philip Monoux Lucas is shown as 'Sarah' in the baptisms of their children and in Philip Monoux Lucas's will which names their surviving children as Anna Maria, Harriet Fraser, Emma, James and George.

2. At Walton upon the Hill [Lancashire], [Marriage of] Philip Monoux Lucas esq. of the Island of St Vincent and of Elmwood in Hertfordshire, to Miss Sarah Beesley of Liverpool.

3. Emma, the daughter of Philip Monoux Lucas and Sarah Lucas, married Edward Walker, a London solicitor who left £500,000 on his death in 1872. James Lucas was a famous eccentric who became known as "Mad Lucas" or "The Hermit of Hertfordshire" and left £120,000 on his death in 1874.

4. Anna Maria Lucas married the Austrian Joseph Ferdinand Count de Taafe and Harriet Fraser Lucas married Count Samuel Ernest Alexander Konarski.

5. Sarah Lucas was living at 7 Cambridge Terrace in 1841, age 60, of independent means, born Ireland, with her children James age 25, Emma age 20, George age 22, 1 male servant and 2 female servants.

6. Will of Sarah Lucas widow of Great Wymondley Hertfordshire proved 26/03/1850. After Sarah's death, her son James refused to bury her for 3 months until her younger son George intervened.

T71/887 British Guiana claim nos. 2316 (Canefields), 2334 (Columbia) and 2340 (Golden Fleece).

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906 [database online]; PROB 11/1780.

2. The Monthly Magazine, or British Register Vol XXV Part 1 for 1808 p. 81.

3. William D. Rubinstein, Who were the rich? 1860- (Volumes 3 and 4, manuscripts in preparation), reference 1872/112. The ODNB entry for James Lucas erroneously gives his father's name as James Lucas but correctly identifies him as a major plantation owner and partner in Chauncy Lang & Lucas, giving Sarah's maiden name as Beesly: F. M. L. Thompson, 'Lucas, James (1813-1874), eccentric', http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17131 [accessed 25/06/2013]; National Probate Calendar 1874.

4. Email from Charles Ross Baron of Biggar, 02/06/2013.

5. 1841 census online.

6. PROB 11/2110/156; F. M. L. Thompson, 'Lucas, James (1813-1874), eccentric' http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17131 [accessed 25/06/2013].

We are grateful to Charles Ross Baron of Biggar for his assistance with compiling this entry.