Arthur Henry Shakespeare Lucas - School Master

School Master

Arthur Lucas abandoned his course, became a master at The Leys School, Cambridge, and provided for his brother's three young children whose mother had died. Lucas had previously won the gold medal at an examination for botany held by the Apothecaries Society, open to all medical students of the London schools. Lucas enjoyed his five years at The Leys school. He found the boys frank and high-spirited, fond of games and yet able to do good work in the class-rooms. Lucas played in the football team, until he broke his collar-bone, and founded a natural history society of which the whole school became members. A museum was established to which Lucas gave his father's fine collection of fossils, and also the family collection of plants, which contained 1200 out of the 1400 described species of British flowering plants and ferns. The museum grew in after years, and obtained a reputation at Cambridge when one of the boys made interesting finds in the pleistocene beds of the Cam valley. Work done by Lucas in the Isle of Wight and the results were published in the Geological Magazine, this led to Lucas being elected a fellow of the Geological Society of London.