Henry Lucas (politician)

The Reverend Henry Lucas (c. 1610 – July 1663) was an English clergyman and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1648.

Lucas was a student at St John's College, Cambridge. He became secretary to Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland. In April 1640, he was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge University in the Short Parliament. He was re-elected MP for Cambridge University for the Long Parliament in November 1640. He was excluded from parliament in 1648 under Pride's Purge.

Lucas died unmarried in Chancery Lane, London, and was buried in Temple Church on 22 July 1663. He is now mainly remembered as a benefactor.

In his will, Lucas founded the Henry Lucas Charity with a bequest of £7,000, to be spent on building an almshouse for poor old men and on employing a chaplain as its Master. The men were to be chosen from the poorest inhabitants of the Forest Division of Berkshire and the Bailiwick of Surrey in or near the Forest. The original Hospital was built by Lucas’s executors on 1.5 acres (6,000 m²) of land in Wokingham in 1666. On the death of the executors in 1675, the Drapers' Company of the City of London inherited the trusteeship of the Hospital. In 1923 an Act of Parliament dissolved the ancient Corporation, and provided for the admission of married couples, and for the employment of a Matron.

By 1999, the original building was no longer suitable for use as a modern almshouse. The original Hospital was sold and in July 2002 the Henry Lucas Charity was merged with the Whiteley Homes Trust. Sixteen double cottages were built in Whiteley Village near Walton-on-Thames in Surrey to provide accommodation for more than twice as many people as was possible in the Hospital, and are known as The Henry Lucas Cottages.

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