James Bradford Lucas, Snr

James Lucas Born 23rd October, 1798 By Paul Daniel Lucas.

James Lucas was the eighth child of Nathaniel Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne. he was born on Norfolk Island on the 23rd of October, 1798, and was baptized on the island on the 29th August, 1802, by Rev. Henry Fulton. As a small boy he grew up with his brothers and sisters on Norfolk Island, living on the farm with his parents. By the late 1700's, Nathaniel, his father, was a very successful farmer with a large family to support. They raised pigs, grew a wide variety of vegetables and possibly some grain crops. In the letter written to his father, dated 20th October, 1796, Nathaniel mentions that Norfolk Island produces two crops in the one year, "one of wheat and one of Indian Corn".

Until the age of six and a half young James lived a quiet and interesting life in the midst of a successful farming family. The climate of Norfolk Island is mild and sub-tropical. The daily minimum temperatures vary between 11 and 23 degrees Celsius, the maximum temperature rarely exceeding 26 degrees. although not large, measuring about 8 km by 5km, the island's population by 1804 had grown to 1,100 people. However, it was a long sea voyage of 1,676 km to Sydney away to the southwest and this isolation and the expense of upkeep of the settlement, led to it being abandoned in 1814.

Nathaniel, his wife Olivia and their family left well before this. Nathaniel had visited Sydney on private business in 1804 and in 1805 he had brought his entire family to Sydney. There he was appointed Superintendent of the Government Timber Mill and thus the young James with his brothers and sisters grew in the early years of Sydney town. Governor Bligh's map of Sydney in 1807 shows the Lucas house in Church Street, on a corner block adjoining the church land and looking out over Cockle Bay. It was half-way between Barrack Row and Fort Phillip, and was not far from the lumber yard which was in High Street.

James Lucas was nine years of age in 1807, and as he grew up, so Sydney town grew up with him. From details on the inquest of his death in Victoria in 1869, we learn that he was a very sociable person, always ready with a joke and very much at home in the company of others. It is quite probable that he had learned these qualities in the small-town atmosphere of Sydney between 1805-1818. His death certificate gives his occupation as carpenter and again it is quite probable that he learned this trade from his father. We have no accurate information on this but it seems most likely that as a teenager, James assisted his father in various building jobs he undertook around Sydney. Of course, living in the heart of Sydney, we can be sure that James, the bright young teenager, knew the dusty unpaved streets and the dockyard areas around the town very well.

Following the death of his father in 1818, the young James, together with his mother Olivia and other members of the family, left Sydney to settle along the River Tamar near Launceston, Tasmania, while at least some of the older children decided to stay in Sydney. In 1818 James Lucas was 20 years old. In 1819 at St. John's Church in Launceston, James married 17-year-old Elizabeth Murray, born on the 6th March, 1802, she was the second child of Kennedy Murray 1 and Ann White. Like her husband, Elizabeth was born on Norfolk Island.

Her father Kennedy Murray 1 was convicted in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, on the 21st September, 1786 and came out with the first group of Scottish convicts on the sailing ship "Pitt", arriving in Sydney on the 14th February, 1792. It is likely that the Murray family knew the Lucas family on Norfolk Island in the years before 1805, and renewed the acquaintanceship when the Lucas family, with their mother, arrived in Launceston in 1818. Elizabeth's mother, Ann White, had remarried Richard Sydes, an overseer of Blacksmiths, and by then 1819,Elizabeth had a four-year-old half-sister, Margaret Sydes, who in 1830 was also to marry into the Lucas family. Her husband-to-be was Thomas, the youngest of the Lucas family, who was 12 years of age by November 1819.

The young bride Elizabeth Murray brings an interesting heritage to the James Lucas branch of the family. Family historians of the Kennedy Murray 1 family say that Elizabeth was a descendant of John Murray, the first Duke of Atholl. In any case, the marriage of James Lucas and Elizabeth Murray was a very successful one. They had 50 years of married life together. The book, "Flotsam and Jetsam" by Henry Button, lists all the first settlers along the River Tamar, Launceston. Among them is the farm later to be called "Cormiston". This is most likely the property which James and Elizabeth farmed for many years and where some of their family grew up.

Their first son, James Junior, was born on the 2nd of July, 1820. It was a large family, fourteen of them surviving to adulthood. From the varying birthplaces of their children, it would appear that James and Elizabeth moved several times during their stay in V.D.L. From 1820 to 1825, they were in or near Launceston. From 1826 to 1838, they were in the Longford area. From 1839 to 1846, they were in the Evandale area and probably here, south of Launceston, until leaving for Victoria in 1854. The parents and grown children seem to have remained one large family unit until at least 1842, when the first of the girls began to marry. Between 1842 and 1847, four of the girls, Olivia, Mary Ann, Anne and Sarah, all married into families near Launceston, respectively being the Reed, Wise, Hammant, and Arch families.

On Monday, 23rd March, 1840, a 45-ton schooner "Perseverance" with Captain Cowell in command, arrived in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, having left Launceston, V.D.L., on the previous Thursday, the 19th March, 1840. An article in the Port Phillip Herald for Tuesday, 24th March, 1840, describes the ship's arrival and lists the passengers, amongst these is Mr. J. Lucas. This is almost certainly James Junior, who had followed his uncle, Thomas Lucas (1807-1888) and family, who had arrived in Melbourne the previous year, 1839. It is not known why the 19-year-old James had left Launceston. However, it is known that shortly after arrival, his uncle and family had moved to Geelong, and it is reasonably certain that James, joined them there.

At any rate, the young James was certainly in Geelong nine years later when on the 27th February, 1849, he married Hannah Tainton. Her bridesmaid was Margaret Lucas, and although James did have a younger sister Margaret, who was 15 years old in 1849, this bridesmaid was most probably his cousin Margaret who was 17 years old in February 1849 and the eldest child of his Uncle Thomas.

James and Hannah had nine children.

The gold rush to Ballarat began, and although we do not know their exact movements, it is reasonably certain that James, Hannah, and their young family moved to the Ballarat district in the early 1850's. Huge amounts of gold were being discovered around Ballarat in the first years of the gold rush, and the prospects were so good that James Senior, his wife Elizabeth, and the younger children of their family were enticed to leave V.D.L., and come to Victoria. Details from their death certificates would indicate that they came over in 1854. It is thought they first lived in Ballarat but after 1857, moved to Carngham, some 22 km's to the South-West on the Beaufort Road, good payable gold having been discovered in the Carngham-Snake Valley area in September, 1857. For both James Senior and Elizabeth Murray, Carngham was to be their last resting place.

Children of James Lucas and Elizabeth Murray.

• James
• Elizabeth
• Olivia
• Mary Ann
• Anne
• Sarah
• William
• Margaret
• Thomas
• John
• Charles
• Martha (twin) died aged 3 months
• Caroline (twin)
• Emma
• Nathaniel
• George

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In 1818 James moved with his mother and several siblings from Sydney to Launceston. He married Elizabeth Murray in 1819. They farmed at various properties around Launceston (1820-25), Longford (1826-38) and Evandale (1839-47) before moving to Victoria in 1854. It is thought that he went to the Ballarat goldfields and then settled at Carngham where there was also a goldfield.

• further information: Peter McKay, A Nation Within a Nation: The Lucas Clan in Australia (2004), pp 952-53