Arthur Henry Shakespeare Lucas

Arthur Henry Shakespeare Lucas (7 May 1853 – 10 June 1936) was an English-born schoolmaster, scientist and publisher who lived in Australia for over fifty years, and became the most renowned writer on Algae after William Henry Harvey

Lucas born was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, the third son of the Rev. Samuel Lucas, a Wesleyan minister, and his wife Elizabeth, née Broadhead. His father had a passion for geology and botany, and Arthur developed an interest in natural science. Lucas' early childhood was spent in Cornwall, and when he was around nine years of age a move was made to Stow on the Wold in Gloucestershire. Here Lucas went to his first private school, but soon afterwards was sent to Kingswood School in Bath, where he was given a solid education in Classics, Modern Languages, and Mathematics. Lucas went to Balliol College, Oxford in 1870, with an exhibition, and associated with men of whom many became the most distinguished of their time. Pneumonia before his final examination prevented him from having any chance of high honours, but he later won the Burdett-Coutts geological scholarship. Lucas then went to London to commence a medical course, and won the entrance science scholarship to the London hospital in the east end. When Lucas was halfway through his course his elder brother, Thomas Pennington Lucas, was ordered to leave England due to contracting tuberculosis and went to Australia.

Arthur Lucas abandoned his course, became a master at The Leys School, Cambridge, and provided for his brother's three young children whose mother had died. Lucas had previously won the gold medal at an examination for botany held by the Apothecaries Society, open to all medical students of the London schools. Lucas enjoyed his five years at The Leys school. He found the boys frank and high-spirited, fond of games and yet able to do good work in the class-rooms. Lucas played in the football team, until he broke his collar-bone, and founded a natural history society of which the whole school became members. A museum was established to which Lucas gave his father's fine collection of fossils, and also the family collection of plants, which contained 1200 out of the 1400 described species of British flowering plants and ferns. The museum grew in after years, and obtained a reputation at Cambridge when one of the boys made interesting finds in the pleistocene beds of the Cam valley. The results of work done by Lucas on the Isle of Wight were published in the Geological Magazine, leading to Lucas being elected a fellow of the Geological Society of London.

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