The Great War Western Front double Mentioned in Despatches and 1919 Danzig Casualty Clearance Station Medical Officer’s group awarded to Major H.A. Lucas, Royal Army Medical Corps, Territorial Force, who was a medical graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and who sometime rowed for his university. A pioneer pathologist with King’s College Hospital and the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London, he became the first whole-time pathologist in otorhinolaryngology and helped to lay the foundations of the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. During the Great War, after home service with the 3rd London General Hospital, he saw service out on the Western Front from September 1915, and was employed variously with the 2/1st Highland Field Ambulance and sometime attached from this unit as a medical officer to the 1/8th (Argyleshire) Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, being also employed with the No.5 General Hospital at Rouen. For his gallant and distinguished services out on the Western Front, Lucas was twice awarded a Mention in Despatches, the awards being made by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, as published in the London Gazette’s for 13 November 1916, and then 16 March 1919, the first of which was for services during the Battle of the Somme. Post war he served as a medical officer with the British Army on the Rhine, when with No.3 General Hospital, and also with No.37 Casualty Clearing Station at Danzig, which indicates that he may have been also involved in operations in support of the Allied Intervention during the Russian Civil War in 1919. His wife, Joan Boustead, whom he married in July 1924, and whose awards are also included, had seen home service in some capacity as a nurse during the Great War when employed through the British Red Cross Society who had trained her. She was most probably with a Voluntary Aid Detachment.
Group of 3: 1914-1915 Star; (CAPT. H.A. LUCAS. R.A.M.C.); British War Medal and Victory Medal with original Mention in Despatches Oakleaf; (MAJOR H.A. LUCAS), mounted swing style as worn on original; ribbons.
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine.
British Red Cross Society War Service Medal 1914-1918, unnamed as issued, mounted swing style as worn on wearing pin. As awarded to Joan Boustead, the wife of Major Lucas from July 1924 onwards.
Together with the following:
1) British Red Cross Society Proficiency Cross for Proficiency in Red Cross Nursing, copper-gilt and enamels, complete with titled top brooch bar, reverse engraved: ‘02641 J. BOUSTEAD’.
2) British Red Cross Society ‘For Service’ Badge, copper-gilt and enamels, reverse officially numbered: ‘L 13777’.
Condition: Good Very Fine.
Harry Audley Lucas was born on 14 March 1886 and studied medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge University from 1904, and then Middlesex Hospital, before qualifying with the Conjoint diploma in 1914, and he then did a house appointment with Middlesex Hospital. Owing to the Great War, having been once a member of the University of London Officer Training Corps, he was then commissioned into the Territorial Force as a Lieutenant into the Royal Army Medical Corps and appointed to the 3rd London General Hospital on 20 August 1914. He then saw service out on the Western Front from 1 September 1915, being employed variously with the 2/1st Highland Field Ambulance and sometime attached from this unit as a medical officer to the 1/8th (Argyleshire) Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a unit of the Highland Division, during which he received promotion to Captain and ultimately temporary Major, being also employed with the No.5 General Hospital at Rouen. For his gallant and distinguished services out on the Western Front, Lucas was twice awarded a Mention in Despatches, the awards being made by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, as published in the London Gazette’s for 13 November 1916, and then 16 March 1919, the first of which was for services during the Battle of the Somme.
With the Armistice, he then saw service with the British Army on the Rhine, being employed with No.3 General Hospital, and also with No.37 Casualty Clearing Station at Danzig, which indicates that he may have been also involved in operations in support of the Allied Intervention during the Russian Civil War in 1919, at which time he had reverted to Captain. Lucas claimed his medals for his Great War service in March 1919, his home address being shown to be in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
After his military service, Lucas was demobilised in 1920, in that same year he was appointed to be a house surgeon in the ear, nose and throat department at King’s College Hospital in London, and in 1921 he was appointed assistant pathologist, later becoming clinical pathologist, and tutor in pathology. Lucas married Joan Boustead on 16 July 1924 at St. Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge. His wife had seen home service in some capacity as a nurse during the Great War when employed through the British Red Cross Society who had trained her. She was most probably with a Voluntary Aid Detachment, and had been born circa 1896, the daughter of merchant from a family of tea merchants and grocers. Her family had links to both South Africa and the Seychelles, and possibly India, but Joan Boustead had been born in Kensington, London.
In 1930 Lucas was appointed a lecturer in pathology and bacteriology in the dental school at King’s. In 1931, he was appointed sub-dean of the medical school and from 1932 to 1937 he was vice-dean. As of 1939 he was also the medical officer at the Epsom and Ewell Hospital, though his home was in Knightsbridge. Lucas eventually retired from King’s College Hospital in 1947 and was then appointed pathologist to the Institute of Laryngology and Otology Postgraduate School in connection with the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. His obituary would later note that he ‘was the first whole-time pathologist in otorhinolaryngology. He helped to lay the foundations of the Institute of Laryngology and Otology and was a pillar of strength when it was most required. A pathologist of the old school, he was an excellent teacher of both undergraduate and postgraduate students, many gf whom will remember with fond affection and gratitude the “old blue” (he rowed for Cambridge in the ‘twenties). He was a pioneer clinical allergist. His knowledge of the pathology of sinusitis and of certain neoplasms of the nose was unsurpassed.’ Lucas died on 29 October 1970 when latterly living in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
