Richard Cockle Lucas

Richard Cockle Lucas (24 October 1800 – 18 May 1883) was an English sculptor and photographer.

Career

Lucas was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, the son of Richard Lucas and his wife, Martha Sutton (who died shortly after childbirth).

At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to an uncle who was a cutler at Winchester, where his ability at carving knife handles revealed his skill as a sculptor. He moved to London, aged 21, and studied at the Royal Academy Schools. From 1828, he was a regular contributor to the Royal Academy, receiving silver medals for architectural drawing in 1828 and 1829.

His son Albert Dürer was born in 1828 in Bayswater and by 1846 the family was living at Nottingham Place in central London. In 1849, the family moved out of London, probably for health reasons, to Otterbourne, near Winchester, where Lucas may have become a friend of the Victorian children's author, Charlotte Mary Yonge.

Lucas then moved to Chilworth near Romsey in about 1854 where he had the "Tower of the Winds" built to his own design. This house stood opposite the former "Clump Inn". In 1865, he built a second home, "Chilworth Tower", about half a mile from the first.