Author: Lucas, Henry
Biography:
LUCAS, Henry (c. 1740-1802: ODNB)
Henry Lucas lived and died in the shadow of his famous father, Dr. Charles Lucas (1713-71), radical Irish MP. He was born in Dublin to Lucas and his first wife, Anne Blundell; the exact date is not known. The family lived in London and Bath during a period when Dr. Lucas was in exile, but Henry returned to Ireland in 1757 to study at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1759, MA 1762), after which he registered at the Middle Temple, London, to study law in 1763. He appears to have lived mainly in London after the death of his father in 1771, making ends meet with some sort of legal work and striving to establish himself as a serious writer. (He was also called to the bar in Ireland in 1790.) Lucas courted the aristocracy and the literary aristocracy, hoping for support. Samuel Johnson cautiously approved his tragedy as containing nothing indecent. When he could not secure the Queen’s permission to dedicate a subscription volume of Poems to Her Majesty (1779), he did it openly without permission. Several Irish peers and peeresses did subscribe. Lucas’s final effort celebrated the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Caroline of Brunswick; it is dated from Charlotte Street, London. Lucas never married. He died in penury in St. Anne Street, Dublin, some time in June 1802: newspapers began to carry reports on June 26. The London Star, among others, pointed to the irony of the fact that even half of the large sums that were at the time being raised for a statue of Dr. Lucas in Dublin “would have saved his son from perishing for want.” (ODNB 1 Feb. 2024; DIB 1 Feb. 2024; ancestry.com 1 Feb. 2024; findmypast.com 1 Feb. 2024; Star 26 June 1802) HJ