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Thomas Dawson LUCAS (1808–1870)
His wife Mrs Maria LUCAS née Brown (c.1812–1907)
Their daughter Miss Ann LUCAS (1839–1896)
Ann’s son Tom LUCAS (1858–1898)
St Giles section: Row 3, Grave B34

Thomas Dawson Lucas was born in St Giles’s parish, Oxford in 1808 and baptised there as Thomas Lucas on 3 February. He was the eldest son of Thomas Dawson Lucas senior and his wife Mary Gardiner. His six siblings were also baptised at St Giles's Church: Mary Ann (1807, died 1808), Mary (1810), Ann (1813), Jane (1815), Henry (1816, died aged two weeks), and Elizabeth (1818, died same year).

Maria Brown was born in Eastleach, Gloucestershire in 1812/13.

On 31 May 1830 at St Nicholas's Church, Abingdon, Thomas Dawson Lucas married Maria Brown, who was unable to sign her name: they were both then living in that parish. They had the following children:

• Martha Jane Lucas (born in Abingdon in 1831)
• Thomas Dawson Henry Lucas (born in Oxford in 1833 and baptised at St Thomas's Church on 10 November)
• William Lucas (born in Oxford in 1836 and baptised at Summertown Church on 17 July)
• Ann Lucas (born at Cox Row, Oxford in 1839 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 21 April)
• Mary Lucas (born at Cox Row, Oxford in 1841 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 26 December)
• Maria Lucas (born at Cox Row, Oxford in 1844/5 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 17 January 1845)
• Elizabeth Lucas (born at Cox Row, Oxford in 1848 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 23 July)
• Henry or Harry Lucas (born at Cox Row, Oxford in early 1851 and and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 4 April)
• Francis Lucas (born at Cox Row, Oxford in 1855/6 and baptised at St Giles's Church on 24 February 1856).

Thomas Lucas was a shoemaker, and he was admitted free on 16 July 1830. He and his wife were living in St Thomas's parish in 1833 and in Summertown in 1836. By 1839 they had moved to Cox’s Row in St Giles’s parish. Often spelt Cocks Row, this was to the west of the Woodstock Road in St Giles, around where the Oratory car park is now. The 1851 census shows Thomas (43) and Maria (38) living there with four of their children: William (14), who was working as a servant, and Mary (9), Maria (5), and Elizabeth (2). Their daughter Ann (12) was living in Little Clarendon Street with her widowed grandmother Mary Lucas (65), who was described as a pauper.

Two of their children were married in the 1850s:

• On 7 March 1854 at St Giles's Church, Oxford, Martha Jane Lucas (24) of Cox's Row married Job Tyrrell (26), a servant of Little Clarendon Street, the son of the labourer Jonathan Tyrrell;
• On 8 October 1855 at Hook Norton, Thomas Dawson Henry Lucas, a cordwainer of St Giles's parish, married Dinah Buggins, a minor, the daughter of the labourer Richard Buggins.

In 1858 when she was 19 their daughter Ann Lucas, who had been working as a servant, gave birth at her home in Cox’s Row to an illegitimate son, Tom Lucas (reg. fourth quarter). He was privately baptised on 4 February 1859 and admitted to St Giles’s Church on 24 April, and was brought up by her parents.

Two of their sons were admitted free: their second son William on 15 April 1859 and their fourth son Francis on 29 July 1880.

On census night 1861 only their grandson Tom (2) and the three youngest children, namely Elizabeth (13), Henry (10), and Francis (5), were still at home with Thomas & Mary Lucas in Cox's Row.

Two more of their children were married in the 1860s:

• On 5 August 1861 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford, William Lucas, described as a servant of St Giles's parish, married Mary Ann Edney of St Mary Magdalen parish the daughter of the labourer Richard Edney;
• On 3 June 1866 at St Thomas's Church, Oxford, Mary Lucas (25) married James Long (26), the son of the labourer James Long: both were living in St Thomas's Street.

Thomas Lucas died in 1870:

† Thomas Lucas died at 63 St Bernard’s Road at the age of 64 on 24 June 1870 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 27 June (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

His daughter Maria was married soon after his death:

• On 7 August 1870 at Oxford Registry Office, Maria Lucas (24), a domestic servant, married William Morse (23), a general dealer.

The 1871 census shows Mrs Maria Lucas as a widow of 59 living at St Bernard’s Road (then called St John’s Road) with her son Francis (15), who was a carpenter’s apprentice, and her grandson Tom (12).

Her son Henry was married in 1876:

• In 1876 (fourth quarter) in Kensington, London, Henry Lucas married Jessie Rich.

By 1881 Mrs Maria Lucas (70) had taken up work as a charwoman, and her son Francis and grandson Tom were now both carpenters. The address of the house in St Bernard’s Road is given more precisely as 14, North Side.

Her youngest son Francis was married in 1884:

• On 14 April 1884 at Ss Philip & James's Church, Oxford, Francis Lucas (28), a joiner of St Bernard's Road, married Phoebe Hatten (25) of 13 Norham Gardens, the daughter of the coachman Stephen Hatten.

By 1891 Mrs Maria Lucas (79) was living at 91 Southmoor Road with her grandson Tom (32), and also her granddaughter Jessie Lucas (14), who was born in Brixton, London.

In 1891 her daughter Ann Lucas (who does not appear in the censuses between 1861 and 1881 and may have been using a different surname) was living in the home of Robert Baynes, Reader in Physics, at 3 Church Walk, where she was working as a certificated nurse: aged 52, she described herself as a widow, and was probably looking after the newborn baby and mother in that household. Five years later, when she died in hospital, she was living at 91 Southmoor Road, and was buried in her father's grave:

† Miss Ann Lucas died at the Radcliffe Infirmary at the age of 56 on 7 May 1896 and was buried in St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 11 May (burial recorded in the parish register of both St Giles’s Church and Ss Philip & James’s Church).

Her effects came to £661 17s. 7d., and her executor was her son Tom.

Tom Lucas was living at 112 Kingston Road and working as a joiner when he died in hospital just two years after his mother Ann. He was buried in the grave of his mother and grandfather:

† Tom Lucas died at the Radcliffe Infirmary at the age of 39 on 31 August 1898 and was buried in St Sepulchre's Cemetery on 3 September (burial recorded in the parish register of both St Giles’s Church and Ss Philip & James’s Church).

His effects came to £430 4s. 2d., and his executors were his uncle Francis Lucas, a carpenter, and his uncle-in-law William Morse, a painter.

By 1901 Mrs Maria Lucas (80) was living at 28 Hayfield Road in the house of her daughter Mrs Maria Morse (50) who was a midwife; her husband William (53) was living on his own means, and they had two children at home: Ellen (24), who was a mother’s help, and Edward (20), who was a railway porter.

Mrs Lucas died in 1907 and was buried in the grave of her husband, daughter, and grandson:

† Mrs Maria Lucas née Brown died at Hayfield Road on 28 January 1907 at the age of 85 and was buried in St Sepulchre's Cemetery on 1 February (burial recorded in the parish register of both St Giles’s Church and Ss Philip & James’s Church).