Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

Horsham, home of his unrelated namesake, Charles Thomas Lucas. C.T.Lucas was the founder and senior partner of Lucas Bros, a leading firm of building contractors, whose work included the Covent Garden Opera House and Floral Hall, several major railway termini and many large hotels. 67 Bunny turned out for the Foresters again in 1877 and a report of a game against I Zingari gave an idea of the attraction: ‘So ended the Walton week, and each cricketer, whether Zingaro, Free Forester, or County Warwick, left the ground with the deepest feelings of gratitude to Sir Charles Mordaunt for the week’s pleasure he had afforded them.’ 68 At Warnham Court, ‘the wicket was flawless, the gardens stunningly beautiful and, at their zenith, the sumptuous country house festivals in July were said to rival Canterbury for grandeur.’ 69 In 1879 Bunny returned there to play for the local side against the Foresters, and in the 1880s was ‘quite content to be wheeled out pretty much annually to help make up the Warnham Court numbers and took a particular toll of the Horsham C.C. attack.’ 70 In 1880 a team of eleven Lucases including Bunny and his cousin Arthur beat Horsham, even though Bunny was absent on the first day, presumably for business reasons. Bunny also played for Horsham alongside A.G.Steel. 71 No fewer than four of the Lucas family played first-class cricket for Sussex, and a fifth played against the county for MCC. Though A.P. was not related to them, he knew some of them through Cambridge: in 1877, Morton Peto Lucas was in the XVI and Bunny was in the XI; and in 1881 when Frederick Maitland Lucas was in the university team, he played against Bunny. The two brothers were on opposing sides in the 1882 match where Bunny achieved his career-best first-class batting and bowling figures – M.P. was playing for the England XI and F.M. for Cambridge. Even after moving to Essex, Lucas still fitted in country-house cricket when he could. Arthur Edwards, who in 1894 served as High Sheriff of Essex, was an Essex committee member. He lived near Waltham Abbey at Beech Hill Park, an Elizabethan-style mansion set in 700 acres where he enjoyed that ultimate status symbol, a well-manicured cricket field in his grounds. He was captain of the High Beech Cricket Club and hosted an annual week of leisurely cricket that ‘was watched with interest by the visitors staying at the house as well as by the spectators admitted to the ground.’ 72 Among the visiting teams was an Essex Hunt eleven that sometimes included Green and Lucas, although their changing priorities are indicated by their dropping out in 1889 because the game clashed with a postponed county match. The man and the cricketer 79 67 C.T.Lucas’s entry in the Dictionary of NationalBiography . 68 Bedford, W.K.R., Annals of the Free Foresters, Blackwood, 1895, p 214. 69 Boorman, David, A History of the Horsham County Cricket Festival: 1908-2007 , Roger Heavens, 2007. 70 Boorman, ibid. , p 15. 71 Hill, Alan, The Family Fortune: A Saga of Sussex Cricket , Scan Books, 1978 72 Cheshunt and Waltham Weekly Telegraph , 5 July 1889.