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Joseph Lucas (12 April 1834 – 27 December 1902) was a lamp manufacturer and the founder of electrical equipment manufacturer Lucas Industries.
Born in Carver Street, Hockley, Birmingham, England[1] in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter and educated at a local Church Sunday School, Joseph Lucas was apprenticed to H. & G.R. Elkington, Silversmiths, in 1847.[2]
In 1860 he established a business selling buckets, shovels and other oddments.[2] In 1872 he admitted his son, Harry, into his business and within three years they opened the Lamp Works in Little King Street in Birmingham.[3] They concentrated on the new types of lamp burning paraffin and petroleum for which there was considerable demand.[2] The business became Lucas Industries.[4]
He died in Naples of typhoid after drinking contaminated water (he was a devout teetotaller and would not drink wine)[2] when on a Mediterranean tour with his third wife. His body was brought back to England for burial, which took place on 14 January 1903 at St. Mary's Church, Moseley.[2]
In 1854 he married Emily Stephens (1833–1885) and together they went on to have six children.[2] In 1885 he married Maria Tyzack and in 1901 he married Mary Anne Owen (1850–1939).[2]