Gould Arthur Lucas
Gould Arthur Lucas (14 March 1831 – 19 May 1914) was an Irish soldier and the last living survivor of the sinking of the HMS Birkenhead in 1852.
Lucas was born in Dublin, a son of the Right Honourable Edward Lucas of Castleshane, County Monaghan, and Anne Ruxton, daughter of William Ruxton , M.P. for Ardee.[1] He was an ensign at time of the sinking of Birkenhead.
Ensign Lucas and Lieutenant Girardot, were on watch together the night of the wreck. Both heard the night orders given to the naval officer of the watch; Lucas was afterwards always under the impression that a small grass fire high on the shore at Danger Point misled this officer into thinking it was the lighthouse at Cape Agulha. After the ship was breached, Lucas helped supervise the evacuation of the women and children in the ship's boat during the sinking of the Birkenhead. Three weeks after the wreck, he posted home "an account of his experience which is of great interest. The narrative written while the circumstances were fresh in its author's memory gives us a vivid picture of the scene on that terrible night in February 1852."
Lucas retired as a captain in 1859, subsequently serving as a magistrate in Durban. Prior to his retirement to England in 1897, he also served as Chief Magistrate at Durban. He died in 1914 in Caernarfonshire.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Burke, Bernard (1904). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland. Harrison & Sons. p. 544. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
- ^ "Survivor of the Birkenhead". The Straits Times. Retrieved 26 June 2012.