Archive of past Queensland Entomologists
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Thomas Pennington LUCAS (1843-1917)
Born Dunbar, Scotland and became interested in natural history as a boy on walks with his clerical father (a Fellow of the Geological Society) on the English moors. Trained in medicine in London and Edinburgh, graduating 1871 with prizes for botany and geology. Practised in London for six years then migrated to Melbourne in 1878 where he practised until 1886. In Melbourne began to publish on Lepidoptera in 1881 and was founder of the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria in 1882, his early papers appearing in its journal. Moved to Brisbane in 1886 and practiced in the City and South Brisbane before opening his private Vera Papaw Hospital in New Farm in 1911. Published numerous papers describing new Lepidoptera during his Brisbane years and formed a large private collection described as “the finest in Australia. It consists of 100 drawers all pretty full. About 80 are exclusively Queenslanders”. Once applied for entomologist position at the Queensland Museum. Acquired the butterfly collection of Brisbane collector Roland Illidge, and both collections eventually went to the South Australian Museum. Lucas was an unconventional physician who experimented with medicinal plants. Invented “Dr Lucas’ Papaw Ointment”, still produced by his descendants in a factory in Beaudesert Road, Acacia Ridge.
Biographies: Thearle, J. 1994. Dr T.P.Lucas and the papaw-“the most wonderful tree in the world”. pp. 45-63. In Atkins, S., Kirkby, K., Thompson, P. and Pearn, J. (eds). “Outpost medicine”- Australasian studies on the history of medicine. U. Tas. and Aust. Soc. of the History of Medicine, Hobart; Metcalf, W.J. 2006. Dr Thomas Pennington Lucas: Queensland scientist, author, doctor, dreamer and inventor. Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 19(5): 788-804