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| Life |
| [pseud. “A.F.” for “A Freeman”; also “Civis” and “Citizen” in the Irish Freeman]; b. 16 Sept. 1713, at Corofin, Co. Clare; Benjamin Lucas and Mary [née] Blood; wrote an early work on the Kilcorney Cave of the Burren; known as a Dublin Presbyterian (‘dissenter’); he became an apothecary in Dublin, 1730, and later qualified as an MD (grad. Leyden), sustaining a profitable practice in Dublin afterwards; he issued Pharmacomastix (1741) a part-satirical pamphlet on fraudulent pharmicist-physicians; elected to Dublin Corporation, 1741, and engaged in suit against Alderman oligarchy at the King’s Bench, 1744; ed. of Citizen’s Journal, 1747, denouncing English restrictions on Irish trade; issued num. pamphlets against oligarchy in Ireland, and especially the vested Aldermen, usually printed by James Esdall of Cork Hill; issued the anti-Catholic Barber’s Letters [1749]; a freq. contributor to Freeman’s Journal, and sometimes called its founder though in fact established by William Le Fanu in 1763; declared a ‘public enemy’ and imprisoned by the govt. for ‘riotous behaviour’ in opposition to it at the by-election of 1748; escaped and removed himself to London to avoid trial, 10th Oct. 1749; issued Political Constitutions of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols. (1751), denouncing British misrule in Ireland; |
| visited continental spas and developed a knowledge of hydrotherapy; qualified as a doctor in Leyden (20 Dec. 1752), with a dissertation on gangrene; back in England, he issued An Essay on Waters (1759), a ‘hydrologia physico-chemica’ ded. to His Royal Highness the Prince, with a preface defending himself against hostile physicians especially in Bath (‘I do not, in fact, decry Bath waters; but show their powers in a different light’, p.xix); sought and received a nolle prosequi from George III and returned to Dublin, March 1761 - to great popular rejoicing; contrib. the Irish Freeman, fnd. 1963 and ed. by Henry Brooke [q.v]; Lucas took a seat in the 1st Irish Parliament of George III; introduced heads of a bill for the better regulation of several trades in the House of Commons, 3 Nov. 1767, resulting in opposition from the Catholic guilds; instrumental in securing the Octennial Act, 1768; issued The Rights and Privileges of Parliaments (1770), his last work; d. 4 Nov. 1771, at his home in Henry St.; there is a life-size marble statue of “Dr. Lucas” by Edward Smyth, 1772 in City Hall, Cork Hill, Dublin and much unreliable information about the subject, arising from confusions created by his enemies and himself. RR ODNB DIB DIW FDA OCIL |
[ The Wikipedia article on Lucas gives a copious account of his charge that the Aldermen of Dublin had usurped the power of the Corporation - being the commoners and citizens of the City - his subsequent anathemisation as “pubic enemy” by the House of Commons, the Judiciary and the Viceroy resulting in his flight to the Isle and Man and onwards to London and France, together with the prosecution of the printers involved in the publication of his pamphlets. In the course of the controversy, he expressed support for William Molyneux’s [q.v.] argument for the independence of the Irish legistature (House of Commons and the limitation of English power in Ireland which he charged with responsibility for instigating every rebellion in the country. See “Charles Lucas” in Wikipedia - online.]
[ The entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA 2009) - online - is by James Kelly. Both accessed 27.09.2023.]
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See also Paul Hiffernan (M.D.), ed., The Tickler, Nos. I-VII. The Second Edition, Review’d, Corrected, and Augmented, with Notes humorous and serious; and an Epistle dedicatory to Ch[a]r[le]s L[u]c[a]s, Freeman. (Dublin 1748) [RIA Library].
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Criticism
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[ See “Charles Lucas 300” Website created by Sean Murphy - online. ]
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Commentary
Samuel Johnson, “Jonathan Swift”: ‘He [?Lucas] had long been hardily singular in condemning this great man’s conduct [i.e., Swift’s], amidst the admiring multitude; nor ever could have thought of making an interest in a man, whose principles and manners he could, by no rule or reason honour [or] approve, however he might have admired his parts or wit.’ (Lives of the English Poets, ed. G. B. Hill, OUP 1905, III, 27; cited in Rosine Aubertine, MA Dip., UUC, 1996; but see further quotations from Johnson, in William J. Maguire, Irish Literary Figures, infra).
R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (1988), p. 238: Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 239, ‘Lucas’s early career ... had in essence been made by the press; he founded the Freeman’s Journal with Henry Brooke in 1763, though it was bought back by the administration for a secret service pension of £50 in 1786. The Castle itself backed papers against Lucas in the 1740s; also remarks on his tracts on municipal reform; riotous behaviour during his candidacy for parliament, 1748, led to his imprisonment, [whence he] escaped to London.
William J. Maguire, Irish Literary Figures (1945), Apothecary in Charles St., Dublin; later MD and Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons, London; lucrative Dublin practice; His Pharmacomastix (A Scheme to prevent Frauds and Abuses in Pharmacy), arose at the expiry of the act requiring examination of pharmacies by law. It includes a satirical portrait, ‘Assuming a pedantic air, one of these gentlemen examines a tongue, and feels the pulse of the patient with great solemnity; then, in a long-spun jargon of technical phrases, - enough to raise the admiration of half the nurses in Christendom - he asks a set of unintelligible questions .. the wily quack, with weightily revolving humph - I thought so - I apprend - armed with fatal pen and ink, prescribes some pernicious burning spirit, which he calls Alexipharmic, not knowing that he is signing the sufferer’s death-warrant ...’ glowed with the same patriotism as Swift, though not the same power of communicating it. Left Ireland to avoid trial, 10th Oct. 1749. Samuel Johnson wrote of him, ‘The Irish Ministers drove him from his country by a Proclamation in which they charged him with crimes which they never intended to be called to prove, and oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence. Let the man who is driven thus into exile for having been the friend of his country be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty, and let the tools of power be taught in turn that they may rob but cannot impoverish.’ In Addess to the Citizens of Dublin (1778), Lucas wrote, ‘Where there is one honest soul who thirsts for liberty, let it be my task to lead him, till he finds a better guide, through crowds of dignified slaves in gilded fetters, to the fountains of truth and liberty.’ The Public Register; or The Freeman’s Journal, est. by him, Sat. 10 Sept. 1763. Madden gives the dates of his various Addresses to the Freeholders of Dublin, and other publications, as ranging between 1741-1749, and from 1761-1771. There is a description of him in Hardy’s Life of Charlemont, ‘His bodily infirmities, his gravity, his uncommon neatness of dress, his grey and venerable locks, blending with a pale but interesting countenance, in which an air of beauty was still visible, altogether excited attention, and no stranger ever entered the House of Commons without asking whom he was.’ His epitaph at St. Michan’s reads, ‘Lucas, Hibernia’s friend, her joy and pride; / Her powerful bulwark and her faithful guide; / Firm in her Senate, steady to his trust, / Unmoved by fear and obstinately just.’ p.30ff.
Maureen Wall, Catholic Ireland in the 18th c., ed. Gerard O’Brien (1989, On 3 Nov. 1767, Dr Charles Lucas introduced in the Commons [68] heads of a bill for the better regulation of several trades. The non-freeman presented a long petition against it on 20 Feb. 1768, humbly hoping that while trade was under restraints from abroad, nothing would be established in favour of private societies checking the free exercise at home. If as it seemed these ‘pretended privileges’ of the guilds were condemned by common law, they hoped that they would not receive the sanction of any express[ion] now. The heads passed through the lower house, however. [68] Dr. Lucas writes to the guild of merchants congratulating them, saying that non-freemen will now be put ‘in some sort upon a level with freemen who purchase their freedom and [b]ear the burden of public office.’ The heads were rejected in the privy council where the Catholics employed lawyers to present their case, according to Matthew O’Conor [History of the Irish Catholics]. During the discussions of this bill, the Freeman’s Journal (15 Feb. 1774) printed a virulent attack on the Catholic Committee, alleging that papists were formed into clubs and societies, that they had bribed the house of lords and the privy council, &c., in order to break up all united protestant bodies. [71]
Stanley Ayling, Edmund Burke (1988), Lucas controversy, 1748-49 spilled over into patriot and courtier politics on question of Ireland’s dependence on Britain subject to a statute of George II; Lucas pamphlet (unnamed); Burke wrote several anonymous pamphlets, often eloquent, abounding in classical reference, but so carefully and weightily judicious that Burke scholars have failed to agree whether he was basically supportive of Lucas or contemptuous of him .. much likelier the latter [as] borne out by a comment [on his] ‘hackneyed pretences’ and ‘contemptible talents’ in a letter of 12 years after, by which time he evidently regarded him medically as a mountebank also [9]; see also under Burke, supra.
Christopher J. Wheatley, ‘“Our own good, plain, old Irish English”: Charles Macklin Cathal McLaughlin) and Protestant Convert Accommodations’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 4, 1 (Autumn 1998), pp.81-102, quotes from Sixteenth Address to the Free Citizens and Freeholders of the City of Dublin (1748); Apology for the Civil rights and Liberties of the Commons and Citzens of Dublin (1748-49), &c. - as infra.
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| Essay on Waters (1756) |
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- Dedicatory letter to His Royal Highness
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Available at Google Books - online.
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Sundry pamphlets
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‘There are none so dangerous, as those, who, in Publick, are Protestants by profession, in Private, Papists, in Policy and Practice. Those, who from Conscience, profess the Popish Religion, openly and honestly, deserve our tenderness and Pity, and are much less dangerous to the establishment.’ (A Sixteenth Address to the Free Citizens and Freeholders of the City of Dublin, 1748, pp.31-32; Wheatley, op. cit., p.85);
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[Further] ‘Lastly, consider to what End have our Ancestors, brave free-born Britons, left their native Climate, to settle in this remote, and then uncultivated Isle? Was it not at the request of an oppressed King, and injured people, to restore their Rights and Liberties, and ot impart a free and generous Spirit to the Whole?’ (An Apology for the Civil rights and Liberties of the Commons and Citzens of Dublin, 1748-9, p.5; Wheatley, p.86.) |
| ‘The Irish, in general, were absolutely treated worse [by the Vikings], than the Victims of themost Savage barbarians; as bad, as the Spaniards used the Mexicans;, or, as inhumanely, as the English, now, treat their Slaves, in America’ [Idem.] |
‘No wonder they should have become implacable Enemies to their lawless, inhuman, perfidious, their worse, than Savage Oppressors: when we find the deluded Wretches, always treated, worse, than a good man could treat Brutes!’ (An Eleventh Address to the Free Citizens [… &c.], [q.d.], pp.8, 11; Wheatley [idem]); |
The foregoing all quoted, with further quotations, in Christopher J. Wheatley, ‘“Our own good, plain, old Irish English”: Charles Macklin Cathal McLaughlin) and Protestant Convert Accommodations’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 4, 1 (Autumn 1998), pp.81-102. |
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Pentarchy: Great Charter of the Liberties of Dublin Transcribed and Translated into English with Explanatory Notes addressed to His Majesty and Presented to His Lords Justice of Ireland by Charles Lucas, a Free Citizen (Esdall 1749) commences with a Dedication in the form of a political history of Ireland which includes remarks on the original Gaelic kingships and the English crown of Ireland: ;As England had formerly been divided into a Heptarchy, so had Ireland, into a Pentarchy; in which State it continued, till it became a Monarchy, under the King of England, about the year 1172. (Ftn. cites G. Cambrensis, M. Paris, J. Brampton, R. Hovenden, Sir. J. Davies. (p.x.) [Available in Collected Political Works at Google Books - online [p.36.]
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References
Dictionary of National Biography cites Pharmacomastix (1741); Divelina Libera, an Apology for the Civil Rights and Liberties of the Commons and Citizens of Dublin (1744); behaved during his candidacy for parliament in such a way as to be denounced and threatened with imprisonment, 1748; escaped to London and the continent; Essay on Waters (1756); MP Dublin 1761-71; contrib. Freeman’s Journal from 1763; ‘the Wilkes of Ireland’ [ODNB article by R.D.] A son, Henry Lucas (fl..1795), ed. TCD, MA 1762, wrote occasional verse. See also Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II,, p.381-87.
Esther K. Sheldon, Thomas Sheridan of Smock Alley (Princeton UP 1967), lists A Letter to the Free Citizens of Dublin. By a Freeman, Barber and Citizen (Dublin Feb 12th 1746/7 [B.M.L]; A Second Letter .. By A. F. Barber and Citizen. March 3 1746/7, 16pp. [R.I.A.]; A Third Letter ... Dublin 1747, 22pp. [R.I.A.].
Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography [rev. edn.] (Gill & Macmillan 1988), b. prob. Ballingaddy, Co. Clare; apothecary, Dublin; published pamphlet on abuse of drugs, 1735; campaigned against municipal corruption as councillor with La Touche [?Peter, or same as William George Digges La Touche, 1747-1803, partner in La Touche Bank, Dublin, or brother?]. Advocated independence of Ireland, and fled prosecution to continent, 1749; grad. medicine at Leiden, 1752; elected MP for Dublin, 1761; freq. contrib. Freeman’s Journal, fnd. 1763; pol. pamphlets published as The Great Charter of the City of Dublin (1749). Statue at City hall. d. Henry St.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, calls him a regular contributor the Freeman’s Journal, and cites Sean Murphy, ‘The Lucas Affair, A Study of Municipal and Electoral Politics in Dublin 1742-49’ (UCD MA thesis, 1981).
British Library, Proceedings of Lord Mayor and Aldermen in a petition for salary of £500 to Dr. Lucas. [BML 1956 Cat.: Ireland].
Belfast Central Public Library holds Appeal to the commons and citizens of London (1756); also, Lucas’s Papers (1748);
Linen Hall Library, Belfast, holds 1) Addresses (1-20) to the free-citizens and free-holders of Dublin, 1748-9; 2) Appeal to the Commons and Citizens of London, 1756; 3) Divilina Libera, an apology for the rights and liberties of the Commons and Citizens of Dublin, 1744; 4) Magna Carta Liberalum Civitatis Dublini, translated with notes by C. L., 1749. Also The Horse and the Monkey, a fable, humbly ascribed to Mr. C. L.
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Notes
H. A. Froude, in Two Chiefs of Dunboy (1899), cites Lucas in connection with his paper, Citizen’s Advertiser (sic), in
Anti-riots: Lucas played a part in quelling the Smock Alley riots of 1754 [var. 1747] as described in Sir John Gilbert, History of Dublin; ‘In the course of the Kelly Riot [1747], Dr. Lucas rises and asserts the rights of the audience, proposing to settle the matter by the wishes of the majority, and ‘called upon those who were for preserving the decency and freedom of the stage to hold up their hands.’ (Gilbert, Vol. II, p.84.)
A Freeman: as a pamphleteer, he used the pseudonymous initials “A. F.”’ and also the full name, “A Freeman”. His pamphlets in connection with Dublin theatre are listed in Sheldon’s bibliography (Thomas Sheridan, 1967), p. 479.
Proto-nationalist? See exchange of letters between Sean Murphy and Sean Connolly in History Ireland (Winter 1995) arising from an article by the former referring to Lucas as ‘an Irish nationalist’ and a riposte in a review of another work by the latter in History Ireland (Autumn 1995). Seemingly Connolly has uncritically cited a forged letter, fathered on Charles O’Conor of Belanagare, in which Lucas is made out to be a Corporation politician and anti-Catholic bigot (p.10).
Portrait: there is a full-length statue by Edward Smyth in the City Hall [formerly Royal Exchange], Cork Hill, Dublin, from 1722. See ‘Edward Smyth, Dublin’s Sculptor, in Irish Arts Review, [Yearbook] (1989-90), p.72; also photo. ill., in Brian de Breffny, ed., Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopaedia (London: Thames & Hudson 1982), p.226.
Namesake: Sir Charles Lucas, with Sir George Lisle, shot to death [executed] by appointment of the Army [i.e., the Commonwealth] after their surrender at Colchester in 1648 - being objects of many contemp. elegies and celebrations of their loyalty to the Crown. Sir Charles Charles Prestwood Lucas (1853-1931) is an author on war in the British Empire (e.g., The Empire and the Anvil, 1916, The Partition and Colonization of Africa, 1922,and The Story of the Empire, 1924).
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