LUCAS, Cecil Rodwell
| Service Number: | Officer |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 30 April 1915 |
| Last Rank: | Major |
| Last Unit: | 53rd Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Ashfield, New South Wales, Australia, 4 June 1887 |
| Home Town: | Waverley, Waverley, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Sydney Grammar School and the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupation: | Solicitor |
| Died: | Natural causes, Concord Repatriation Hospital, Concord, New South Wales, Australia, 3 April 1962, aged 74 years |
| Cemetery: |
Narooma General Cemetery, NSW |
| Memorials: |
World War 1 Service
| 30 Apr 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Lieutenant, Officer, 17th Infantry Battalion | |
|---|---|---|
| 12 May 1915: | Involvement Lieutenant, 17th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '12' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Themistocles embarkation_ship_number: A32 public_note: '' | |
| 12 May 1915: | Embarked Lieutenant, 17th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Themistocles, Sydney | |
| 13 Mar 1916: | Transferred AIF WW1, Lieutenant, 56th Infantry Battalion | |
| 1 Apr 1916: | Promoted AIF WW1, Captain, 56th Infantry Battalion | |
| 1 Apr 1917: | Promoted AIF WW1, Major, 56th Infantry Battalion | |
| 1 Jun 1917: | Honoured Mention in Dispatches | |
| 17 Apr 1918: | Wounded AIF WW1, Major, 54th Infantry Battalion, Villers-Bretonneux, Gassed | |
| 2 Sep 1918: | Wounded AIF WW1, Major, 56th Infantry Battalion, "The Last Hundred Days", Slight - remained on duty | |
| 11 Oct 1918: | Transferred AIF WW1, Major, 53rd Infantry Battalion | |
| 23 Jun 1919: | Embarked AIF WW1, Major, 53rd Infantry Battalion, HT Orita, England as second in command for return to Australia - disembarking Sydney 9 August 1919 | |
| 8 Oct 1919: | Discharged AIF WW1, Major, 53rd Infantry Battalion |
Help us honour Cecil Rodwell Lucas's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Michael Silver
The son of solicitor Edgar Lucas and his wife Catherine, Cecil Rodwell Lucas was born at Ashfield in 1887. His early education was at the Sydney Grammar School where he was senior prefect and stroke of the coxed four rowing team that won the Schools' Championship in 1904. Leaving Grammar he entered the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1910 and completing his law degree in 1915 when he was admitted to the Bar.
He was appointed Lieutenant upon enlistment in May 1915, promoted to Captain in April 1916 and Major, in April 1917. He served with the 17th Battalion on Gallipoli, being one of the last to be evacuated.
Tony Cuneen’s paper ‘Barristers in the First World War’ details that as the final stages of Gallipoli unfolded, Lieutenant Cecil Lucas was in charge of the last party of the 17th Battalion to leave Quinn’s Post in the early morning of 20 December 1915. According to the Battalion history, Lucas shook hands with his commanding officer, Colonel Goddard, who retired to the beach. Lucas then set a record on a gramophone in Battalion Headquarters, ready to be played. It was the piano march, “Turkish Patrol” as ‘a graceful compliment to a chivalrous foe’. Lucas, whose nickname from Sydney Grammar School was ‘Caesar’, was known to always do things with a certain panache.
At 2.56 am two officers, including Lieutenant Lucas, and 21 other ranks filed out of the trenches onto the step stairway of Quinns and moved to the beach for evacuation.
With reorganisation of the AIF, he was transferred to the 56th Battalion in early 1916 before embarking from Alexandia for France in June 1916. In April 1917 he was mentioned in despatches in connection with the organisation of a successful trench raid on the trenches enemy at Fleurbaix on night of 20/21 September 1916. Later he served with the 53rd and 54th Battalions. He was treated for trench fever in March 1917 and gassed in April 1918.
In June 1919 he embarked HT Orita for his return to Australia.
Resuming his law career, he practiced at Qeanbeyan for many years whilst residing at Tharwa, south of Canberra and pursuing his interest as a grazier. He moved to Narooma in later life and was buried there following his death at Concord Repatriation General Hospital in 1962.
References:
Mackenzie, KC The Story of the Seventeenth Battalion AIF (Sydney, 1946) p85
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/NSWBarAssocNews/2014/39.pdf
https://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110368435
https://heuristplus.sydney.edu.au/heurist/?db=ExpertNation&ll=Beyond1914
Click images to start slideshow.