Lucas, Nathaniel (1763-1818)

Nathaniel Lucas was sentenced at the Old Bailey on the 7th July 1784 to transportation for seven years for theft of a few items of clothing. The constable found him in bed. "We at last made him get up, and between the sacking and the feather bed there was this cotton apron, and the towel, and in the adjoining room… we found all the rest of the things doubled up in a feather bed."

Lucas, who said he was a joiner and carpenter, " said he knew nothing of them, but his countenance changed very much… he pretended to be asleep, but it is a thing impossible… because there was so much noise in the room." Lucas claimed that anyone could have gone into the room where he slept. He was sent to the "Ceres" hulk, aged 21, on 23 May 1785, transferred to the "Ensor" hulk on the 3rd January 1787, and dispatched to Portsmouth by wagon on the 24th February to embark on the "Scarborough" on the 27th.

From Port Jackson on the 14th February 1788 Lucas was sent to Norfolk Island by the "Supply" with the group to settle the island, and made himself a valuable asset as carpenter in the new community, one of the very few skilled men among the convicts. By July 1791 he was subsisting six persons on three acres at Sydney Town, Norfolk Island, with 58 rods cleared, sharing two sows with his wife Olive or Olivia Gascoigne, three daughters and William Walsh an employee. One sow littered in March and October, producing seven offspring the first time, eight the next.

On the 16th August 1791 Lucas lost two of his children. "The carpenter had two days ago set fire to two pine trees which he hoped would fall clear of his dwelling house. One of these unfortunately fell on it and killed two fine twins, of two years of age, bruised the mother in many parts of her body and broke her arm in two places. An infant child that was in the mother’ arms at the time escaped without hurt, although the house was smashed to pieces. " The two year old twins Mary and Sarah were killed, but William who was seven months old , survived to reach maturity in NSW. (the twins were actually about 18 months old)

On 31st December 1792 Lucas was appointed superintendent of convict carpenters, black-smiths and sawyers, and was settled on 15 acres (Lot 33), all plough-able and all cultivated by October 1793. He was elected a member of the Norfolk Settlers Society. At June 1794 he was selling grain to stores and employing Mary Ann McCarthy, probably to help his wife and three children. Olive or Olivia is know to have borne 13 children up to 1807.

Lucas probably came from Thames Ditton, Surrey, to which place he addressed a letter to his father John Lucas in 1796 carrying remembrances to his brothers and sisters and an account of his own family (at that date two boys and two girls). In June 1795 he had become acting master carpenter after the death of William Peate. However, by September 1800 he had been dismissed by Captain Joseph Foveaux for misconduct and for his impertinence, as Foveaux told Governor King , nor has he been of any service to Government since your departure.

Returned to Port Jackson, Lucas had by February 1806 erected an octagonal smock mill on the esplanade at Fort Phillip, 40 feet high with a diameter base of 22 feet to work two pairs of millstones to come from Norfolk Island. He had taken lease of a town lot in January for 14 years, renewed in 1809 for 21 years. After a period as a private builder, he became superintendent of carpenters in NSW in 1811 at a salary of Fifty pound a year. Many of his buildings are well known today, including the Rum Hospital at Sydney, the personages at Liverpool and Paramatta and St Luke’s Church at Liverpool. In June 1813 he was paid 22 pound for erecting the tollgate at Hyde Park and work on the goal, and 128 pounds 10 shillings in 1815 for fitting up two rooms in the general hospital and temporary courts of justice. At the end of June 1815 he was paid 250 pounds for his part in the contract for erecting the dwelling house and offices for the resident chaplain at Liverpool, his death is believed to be suicide from mental derangement.

After his death, Samuel Terry (Earl Cornwallis 1810) who with David Beavan had been guarantor for Lucas claimed his land. Terry was administrator of the estate valued less than 200 pounds.