Lucas, Ernest (1870-1950)
Early years
Ernest was born in 1870 at Ossett, Yorkshire, to parents William Clowes Lucas and Nancy Fothergill. William was a coal miner. Ernest was baptised on 26 June 1871 at South Ossett by Rev Harvey Leigh. His father and grandfather were PM local preachers.
Ernest was converted at eleven. He was on full plan and secretary of the Quarterly Meeting at the age of fifteen.
Ministry
Ernest became a master of languages, being able to read Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, Danish, and write and speak Esperanto. Whilst at Hartley College, Ernest helped with the teaching of Hebrew and Greek.
His obituary records that Ernest had a deep vein of mysticism. This, combined with sound learning, made his pulpit work powerful, inspiring and memorable. He was a gifted lecturer and contributed to many literary and theological publications. He accepted his share of administrative work in various Districts, but concentrated on his circuit work.
Family
Ernest married Margaret Good (1870-1939) in the spring of 1894 at Castle Eden, Co Durham. Census returns identify six children.
- Ernest William (b1895) – an engineering apprentice (1911)
- Mary (b1898)
- Margaret (b1901)
- Dorothy (b1902)
- Nancy Fothergill (1905-1989)
- Henry James (b abt1908)
Ernest died on 24 November 1950 at Colchester, Essex.
Circuits
- Hartley
- 1889 Newcastle III
- 1894 Crook
- 1896 Durham
- 1899 Houghton le Spring
- 1903 N Sunderland
- 1905 Saltburn
- 1908 Grimsby II
- 1909 St Day
- 1910 Dunstable
- 1914 Penge & Bromley
- 1918 Salisbury
- 1925 Bradford VII
- 1930 Haltwhistle
- 1936 Colchester (S)
References
Primitive Methodist Magazine 1920/412; 1932/405
Methodist Minutes 1951/129
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
Comments about this page
Thanks to the “My Primitive Methodists” website I have been able to unravel another small mystery in my ancestry. I was researching the family of Laura Good who married one of my great-uncles, the Rev Bartholomew Redhead. I lost track of her elder sister Margaret Good and decided she had probably died in the 1890’s along with their parents. Then a report of the wedding in a copy of the Primitive Methodist Leader, which I had tracked down using the link provided by this website, led me to the Rev Ernest Lucas. He assisted my great-grandfather, the Rev John Redhead, in marrying Bartholomew & Laura – but why? As soon as I read this page, I realised – Margaret had not died but merely changed her name in 1894 to Mrs Ernest Lucas.
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