Tomb of Samuel Lucas and Margaret Bright Lucas in Highgate (Western) Cemetery

Reasons for Designation

The tomb of Samuel Lucas and Margaret Bright is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * The tomb is of special historical interest, having been erected to Samuel Lucas, an anti-slavery campaigner; the inscription celebrates the imminent demise of slavery in America; * Group value, lying in the western part of Highgate Cemetery which is included on the Register of Parks and Gardens at Grade II*, in close proximity to a number of other listed tombs, most of similar date.

Details

798/0/10232

SWAIN'S LANE
Tomb of Samuel Lucas and Margaret Bright Lucas (no. 13876) in Highgate (Western) Cemetery

21-DEC-07

GV
II
DESCRIPTION: Tomb no. 13876. Probably c1865, with additional inscription of c1890. Small stone tomb with pitched top, on landing stone. The leaded lettering is raised; all letters are san serif capitals. On the east side of the stone, an inscription commemorates Samuel Lucas: 'Here rest the remains of / Samuel Lucas, / aged 54. / He died on the 15th of April 1865, a few hours after hearing the tidings of the destruction / of the slave power in the United States, by the fall of Richmond / an object which he had / unceasingly laboured to promote as managing proprietor of the Morning Star.' On the west side of the tomb, an inscription commemorates Lucas's wife, Margaret: 'And of Margaret Bright Lucas, his wife, / who died February 4th 1890, / aged 71 years. / During her long widowhood, she devoted herself to the cause of Temperance, / and was the President of the British Women's Temperance Association and of / the World Women's Temperance Union. / Her life was simple, noble, beneficent.'

HISTORY: Samuel Lucas (1811-1865) was an industrialist, merchant, journalist, and social reformer. His father was a Quaker corn merchant; Samuel remained a Quaker all his life, and an opponent of the established church. His early years were spent in Surrey and London. In 1839 he married Margaret Bright, sister of John Bright of the Anti-Corn Law League, in which Lucas, an enthusiast for free trade, was later active. In 1845 they moved to Manchester, where Lucas became a partner in a cotton mill, but they returned to London in 1849, Lucas setting up in business as a corn merchant. In 1847 Lucas was one of the founders of the Lancashire Public Schools Association, of which Richard Cobden became a powerful advocate. Educational reform remained a central passion for Lucas; he advocated a decentralised, secularist system, inspired by American models.

Lucas was a long-standing supporter of the campaign against slavery. He appears in Benjamin Robert Haydon's group portrait, 'The Anti-Slavery Convention, 1840', which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1857 Lucas became editor of the Morning Star, a radical newspaper started by Cobden and Bright in 1856, in which Lucas had a financial stake. (The paper, which ran until 1869, had no connection with today's Morning Star, which was founded in 1930.) Lucas was a prominent supporter of the North during the American Civil War, and a vocal critic of the continuation of slavery in the South, views which were reflected in the pages of the Morning Star. An obituary in the New York Times observed that, 'the warmth, ability and steadfastness with which he defended the cause of freedom in this country against the sneers and detractions of the Southern party in England, gave him a high place in the affections and esteem of our people'. In 1862 Lucas was a founder of the Emancipation Society, formed in support of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of that year, which committed the Union to ending slavery. In the opinion of the New York Times, Lucas's death 'created no less sorrow in America than in England.'

The evacuation of Petersburg, and of Richmond, the capital of the Confederate States of America, on 2 April 1865, signalled the end of the Civil War, and the triumph of the North over the South.

Margaret Bright Lucas was a temperance activist and suffragist, and a committed Quaker. Following her husband's death, and the marriages of their two children, she visited the north-eastern states of America, where she found a congenial network of reformers. The 'advanced views and institutions of a less trammelled social system' provided inspiration for her work in England. She was elected president of the British Women's Temperance Association in 1878, and the first president of the world-wide Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1885, and in 1879 she took the first women's petition in favour Sunday closing to the House of Commons. Lucas was also active in peace and anti-prostitution as well as suffrage work, serving on the executive of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and the Ladies' National Association.

Highgate Cemetery (East and West Cemeteries) is on the Register of Parks and Gardens at Grade II*. The tomb of Samuel Lucas and Margaret Bright Lucas is in a particularly overgrown part of the cemetery, and at present (2007) is partially buried. In the same section of consecrated ground are the tombs of Michael Faraday, Thomas Charles Druce, Charles Cruft, and Charles Spencer Green, all listed. To the north lies the tomb of Henry Gray, anatomist, which is not listed.

SOURCES:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; New York Times, 6 May 1865

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The tomb of Samuel Lucas and Margaret Bright is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* The tomb is of special historical interest, having been erected to Samuel Lucas, an anti-slavery campaigner; the inscription celebrates the imminent demise of slavery in America. This tombstone was listed 2007, the bicentenary year of the 1807 Abolition Act.
* Group value, lying in the western part of Highgate Cemetery, in close proximity to a number of other listed tombs, most of similar date

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

504205

Legacy System:

LBS

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