Charles Lucy, architect

A carte-de-visite showing the grave of the Liverpool architect Charles Lucy.

Born in 1832 to Charles and Jane Lucy, he was baptised at St Mary-for-the-Blind in Liverpool on 8 August 1832.

The 1841 census shows him living with his mother, a school mistress, and his elder sister Margaret at Watson Street in Birkenhead. There is no sign of his father on the census. Ten years later, the family were living at 65 Argyle Street in Birkenhead. Jane Lucy was a widow and a ‘Baby Linen Maker’. Charles was 18 and an ‘Architect Pupil’.

In 1855 at Liverpool he married Rosa Banks, born in Torquay in or about 1833. The couple appear on the 1861 census living at Holt Hill in Tranmere with their son Charles (3) and their daughter Margaret (7 months). Charles was now an architect.

Together with architect Charles Littler, he formed the Liverpool-based firm of architects Lucy and Littler. Their works include the lodges, chapels and entrace gate at Anfield Cemetery (1863) - only the Non-Conformist chapel remains, which is closed and on the danger list - and all the buildings and main structures at the Flaybrick Cemetery in Birkenhead (1864), specifically three mortuary chapels, a Registrar's office, and a Sexton's lodge. The Roman Catholic chapel was demolished in 1971 and the Anglican and Non-Conformist chapels, last used in 1975, are today in a very poor state.

Lucy and Littler also designed the Alliance Bank on the corner of Castle Street and Derby Square in Liverpool (1868), which today is a boutique hotel.

Charles Lucy died on 9 January 1871, aged 38. According to the abstract of his will, he was an ‘Architect and Surveyor’ and at the time of his death he was living at 37 Clifton-road in Birkenhead. His effects were valued at ‘under £3000’.

He was buried in Flaybrick Cemetery surrounded by buildings which he had designed. A recent report (2009) describes his grave as ‘Buff sandstone with a semi-circular top and stone finial, stone coffin lid and trefoil footstone’. His business partner Charles Littler had predeceased him, aged 36, on 3 July 1868 and been buried in the same cemetery but, according to the same report, his grave has since suffered severe damage.

Photographer unidentified.