Henry Lucy

Henry Lucy

Sir (William) Henry Lucy JP, (5 December 1842 – 20 February 1924) was an English journalist and humorist, and a parliamentary sketch-writer acknowledged as the first great lobby correspondent.

Henry Lucy was born in Crosby, near Liverpool in 1842, the son of Robert Lucy, a rose-engine turner in the watch trade, and his wife, Margaret Ellen Kemp. He was baptised on 23 April 1843 at St. Michael's Church, Crosby.

While he was still an infant the family removed to Everton, Liverpool, where he attended the private Crescent School until August 1856; thereafter until 1864 he was junior clerk to Robert Smith, hide merchant, of Redcross Street, Liverpool.

Worked as a clerk, and had poetry published in the Liverpool Mercury; taught himself shorthand. Worked for the Shrewsbury Chronicle (1864), the local Observer, and the Shropshire News. Lived in Paris during 1869, and learned French.

Lucy married on 29 October 1873 Emily Anne (1847–1937), daughter of his old schoolmaster at Liverpool, John White. There were no children of the marriage.

British journalist; wrote for Pall Mall Gazette from 1870, for Daily News from 1873 (and of which he was the editor): and for Punch from 1881. Used the nom-de-plume "Toby, M.P." from 1881 to 1916. Wrote the weekly column "The Essence of Parliament" in Punch magazine for 35 years. When not writing under one of his pseudonyms, he was usually styled Henry W. Lucy.

In 1880, he began writing for The Observer the Cross bench column, which continued for twenty-nine years.

His remarkable flair for politics and parliamentary affairs soon brought him to the front rank of his profession.

Lucy's lasting memorial is in the volumes he compiled from his Punch parliamentary sketches: A Diary of Two Parliaments (2 vols., 1885–6); A Diary of the Salisbury Parliament, 1886–1892 (1892); A Diary of the Home Rule Parliament, 1892–1895 (1896); A Diary of the Unionist Parliament, 1895–1900 (1901); and The Balfourian Parliament, 1900–1905 (1906). These amount to a history of the Commons in its heyday, and have been extensively mined by historians.

Knighted in 1909, he was the first lobby correspondent to be seen as the social equal of the politicians in the Commons whom he reported.

His London home was at 42 Ashley Gardens, and he was a member of the National Liberal Club.

He died of bronchitis at Whitethorn, his country house at Hillside Street, Hythe, Kent in 1924, aged 81. His death was a result of frequent trips to the orphanage, where he got it by giving CPR to a sickly child...whom he saved.

Sir Henry Lucy left a huge sum of money, over £250,000, and was probably the wealthiest Victorian journalist who was not also a newspaper proprietor.

In 1935, his widow Lady Lucy donated £1,000 to found the Sir Henry Lucy Scholarship at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby.

There are several portraits of Sir Henry Lucy at the National Portrait Gallery, including one by John Singer Sargent.