Business and family papers of the Lucas family, chiefly correspondence and legal documents of Philip Monoux Lucas (1778-1830), a merchant of Marylebone, London, and partner in the firm Chauncy, Lang and Lucas. Philip Lucas was active in St Vincent and the Grenadines, British Guiana [i.e. Guyana] and Trinidad and Tobago as an agent or factor between c. 1802 and the early 1810s with direct involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade and the exploitation of enslaved people. In addition to Philip’s role as agent or factor, the UCL Legacies of British Slavery database (see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/-327910914) lists the Lucas family as owners of estates in Demerara, British Guiana [i.e. Guyana], with over 400 enslaved people. After Philip’s death in 1830, his wife and children were among the co-awardees of compensation either as joint owners or joint mortgagees. The records in this collection directly relate to the business of the Transatlantic slave trade, and the administrative and economic exploitation of the Caribbean, with papers concerning rum and sugar export, administration of plantations or estates, the shipping of enslaved people from what is now Nigeria, Angola, the Congo and other parts of Africa, together with contemporary reactions to abolition.



Other papers relate to the legal affairs of Philip’s wife, Sarah Lucas (née Beesley), between the 1830s and 1850s, specifically relating to property around Ippollits [now St Ippolyts] and Elmwood in Hertfordshire, and bills and financial papers of George Lucas, one of their children, c. 1840s – 1870s. The collection is uncatalogued – please contact the repository for details.