Jonathan Lucas was born in 1775 in England and christened in St. Mary's Church, Egremont, Cumberland, February 26, 1775. His parents were Jonathan and Mary (Cooke) Lucas, both of Cumberland. As a lad of about fifteen years he came to South Carolina with his father, whom he assisted in building rice mills.
In 1798 Lucas bought a large tidewater lot in Cannonborough, Charleston, where he banked a mill pond and built a rice mill that attracted a considerable toll business. In 1801, on Middleburg Plantation, Cooper River, inherited by his wife from her father, he built a toll rice mill.
On July 12, 1808, he patented a new type of machine for removing the husks from rice without pounding by pestles. This machine consisted of two vertical conical cylinders, turning in opposite directions, one within the other, the inner cylinder having a much higher velocity than the outer. The outer cylinder was faced with sheet iron punched like a grater; the inner was sometimes similarly faced, sometimes covered with fluted cork or other soft wood, and sometimes had sand or another scouring substance cemented to the surface. The rice passed into the space between the cylinders, which were usually about a half inch apart, though the inner cylinder might be moved up or down at will. From the cylinders it went to the rolling screen where the flour was sifted off, and finally it was polished by the brushing machine.
In 1822, Jonathan Lucas the younger, at the invitation of the British government, returned to England; and in 1827, he and his son-in-law, Henry Ewbank, doing business in Mincing Lane, London, received a British patent for his invention. Rice-cleaning mills were eventually established at London, Liverpool, Copenhagen, Bremen, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, and Lisbon; and Jonathan Lucas amassed a large fortune. At Hatcham Grove, his residence in Surrey, he became ill on Christmas morning, 1832, and a few days later died of what was called an effusion of blood to the head.
By his will, dated October 7, 1831, but not recorded in Charleston until 1836, he appointed his sons-in-law as trustees to manage his plantations, negroes, and trading and other partnerships in Great Britain, America, or elsewhere, making provision for his adult and minor children and bequeathing to his widow all his real and personal property in South Carolina.
On July 18, 1799, Lucas married Sarah Lydia Simons, daughter of Benjamin Simons of the Grove Plantation in Christ Church Parish.
