Samuel Lucas

Samuel Lucas (1811 – 16 April 1865) was a British journalist and abolitionist. He was the editor of the Morning Star in London, the only national newspaper in Britain to support the Unionist cause in the American Civil War. He died knowing that legal slavery in America had ended. In 2010 a U.S. Embassy attaché visited the tomb of Samuel Lucas.

Biography Samuel Lucas was born in 1811 to a Quaker family in Wandsworth. Frederick Lucas was his younger brother. His father bought and sold corn. Lucas married his cousin Margaret Bright on 6 September 1839 who was also from a well connected family in the Society of Friends. His wife was to become famous in her own right largely after Lucas's death.

Lucas worked for many good causes. He attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 and he was included in the commemorative painting by Benjamin Haydon. Freeing slaves was to be a theme throughout his life. Another interest was secular schools, which Lucas championed in Manchester and where he met Richard Cobden.

In March 1856, his brother in law, John Bright in partnership with Cobden created a new newspaper which was called the Morning Star. Lucas was appointed as the paper's editor. Lucas took a strong interest in running the paper where he was the "managing proprietor". Matthew Arnold described the paper as reflecting the "rancour of Protestant dissent in alliance with the vulgarity meddlesomeness and grossness of the British multitude." Eventually Lucas became too ill to regularly attend, and he had to appoint a sub editor. However, he would still oversee the paper, and at times obliged journalists to write a second article that negated an opinion Lucas did not approve of. The paper took a strong line on anti-slavery and the Morning Star was the only national paper to support the Unionist side.

Legacy Lucas died before he could see the headlines in the Morning Star that marked the end of slavery. Lucas's paper was the only newspaper that supported the Union side from the start of the war. In 2010 an official from the U.S. Embassy officially paid respect at Lucas's tomb. Here rest the remains of SAMUEL LUCAS, aged 54. He died on 16 April 1865, a few hours after hearing the tidings of the destruction of the slave power in the United States, by the fall of Richmond; an object which he had unceasingly laboured to promote as Managing-Proprietor of the Morning Star. Lucas and his wife's tomb in Highgate has been a Grade II listed building since 2007.