The Lucas Family

These photos are from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.

The only indication of the identity of the family in the first four photos was the message "With Mr & Mrs Lucas & Family's Compliments" on the reverse of the family group. 

However, three photos of a wedding in the 1920s made it possible to find out more about the Lucases. The first is a picture of newly-weds and has "With Mr and Mrs V T Brooks Compliments" written on the back. Then, in the second, Mr and Mrs Lucas are standing on the right.  From a search of 1920s marriage records, it seemed very likely that these photos were of the wedding of Victor Tom Brooks and Nellie Lucas at Burley Parish Church on 10 February 1923 and this has since been confirmed by one of their nieces and her son.  Nellie's parents were Harry and Annie Maria Lucas who lived in the Burley Road area of Leeds.  Nellie was born in 1898 and her brother William Harry in 1899. 

The line up in the wedding photo above is as follows -

Back row: Tom and Clara Ellen Brooks (Victor's parents), William Harry Lucas (who was one of the witnesses), Annie Maria and Harry Lucas.

Front row: Probably Nellie Moss (nee Brooks) who was Victor's eldest sister, Victor and Nellie Brooks, probably Clara Holden Rushforth (another witness) who was a cousin of the bride.

The records of Woodhouse Cemetery (transcribed on the Yorkshire Indexers site) tell a sad story as far as the Lucases are concerned.  It seems Nellie and William Harry were the oldest of Harry and Annie Maria's children and the only ones to survive childhood.  Four more boys and two girls, all born between 1900 and 1911, had died by 1912.  Arthur was 14 months old when he died of TB in 1904, his sister Dorothy Mary four when she died of diphtheria the following year, convulsions took Albert in 1908 when he was only eight weeks old, May was premature and lived only three days after her birth in 1910, Fred was born in 1911 and survived only eight hours, and finally poor Walter reached the age of five but succumbed to scarlet fever in Seacroft isolation hospital in March 1912.

Thanks to Richard for his assistance in identifying the members of the Brooks family.