LUCAS, FREDERICK

Journalist; b. Westminster, March 30, 1812; d. Staines, Middlesex, Oct. 22, 1855. He belonged to a well-known Quaker family, attended London University, and read for the bar, to which he was admitted in 1835. He was received into the Church in 1839, but should not be reckoned among the oxford movement converts. His great contribution to the revival of Catholic life in England was the foundation of the tablet (1840) as a weekly journal for the educated laity. He did not limit the journal's content to ecclesiastical or religious subjects; the first issue, for example, reported a current murder trial at some length. Lucas's political sympathies were with the Whigs, the party of reform and liberalization, and he was deeply disappointed when Pius IX, after his first liberal phase, became more and more preoccupied with the defense of the temporal power of the Holy See against the rising tide of anticlerical Italian nationalism. The pope became increasingly anxious to keep the friendship of the British government, and the situation in Ireland offered a good bargaining point. Lucas was not an Irishman, but he warmly espoused their cause and was returned to the House of Commons for an Irish seat. He moved the Tablet to Dublin (1849) and edited it from there for about three years. The paper's chronic financial difficulties worsened as Lucas could win little English Catholic support for the Irish cause. He was dismayed to discover that the Irish bishops, acting in obedience to Rome, discouraged the clergy from supporting the movement for the repeal of the Union. Lucas went to Rome (1854) to try to get the policy modified, with no success. He returned to England and died in the following year; the Tablet was acquired by another convert, John Wallis, who sold it (1868) to the future Cardinal Herbert vaughan.

Bibliography: j. gillow, A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time, 5 v. (London-New York 1885–1902; repr. New York 1961) 4:336–343. e. lucas, The Life of Frederick Lucas, M.P., 2 v. (London 1886).

[d. woodruff]