The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-14

I Lord Lucas had converted Wrest park, l his seat in Bedfordshire into hospital | for the wounded, and offered it as home l for disabled soldiers after the war He was unmarried, and the Lucas and Ding wall baronies pass by special remainder l to his only sister the Honorable Nan Inc Herbert, who was born in 1880. The sec | ond heiress is Lady Desborough, who is
 also co-heiress with her and the children | of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Walter
 Kerr to the barony of Butler.
 1 Barrie's tribute to Lord Lucas is signed l simply, ,'J. NJ. B. It reads as follows: 1 Every one who knew him will be glad
 that if he had to die he died in the air. lit is an assurance to them that he was Ihappy to the last, pursuing and pursued up there, exulting in 1t all, even in the l last moment when he had the supreme | experience. No i'll will, I am sure, to l whoever brought him down, but rather a wave of the hand from one airman to another. There is still that sort of ! chivalry on both sides in the sky Hav- | ing had a very good life in the years | he spent on the ground, they neverthe- l less seemed strange and stupid to him after his first flight. He came down a different man from the one who went |, up, and was different ever afterwards, | as if he had made journey into the I springtime of the world and brought back
 a breath of it. This is what it is to be a true airman; you may see the same l look in all their faces. It is not to be wondered that so many of them fly away | and never come back.
 | "He lost leg in the Boer war, and no
 doubt other people had headaches that | day, and the permanent effect on them and him was about the same. It is worth dwelling on for 8 moment for the
 comfort of those in similar case today and their relatives I had known him intimately for months. seen him racing the wind on horseback riding in races, walked with him a dozen miles a day, before I had any idea that he was even l lame. Since then I have known him walk | 20 miles of the stiffest country in the Eebrides, fishing great part of the way, l and return to play cricket lawn ten
 his. It was all done by the power of l his will. No one need doubt that grim l duel went on for months between him 1 and what he had to fight. no witnesses | save him and it, but 1t was great vc- 1 tory. How Bron Lucas got rid of his | headache would, if 1t could be told, make one of the bravest chapters in bio graphy.
 There was a touch of other worldli- | ness about him, even before he became an airman; after that I think it is there I with all of them; you see it in the pug | zled smile with which they regard those I of us who live below. Rather a sad face
 
 /, not so fine a place as he wished it was. ! The kindest of friends, he was still an elusive man whom you often felt you knew well but could never quite touch, like character In book. Up to the end an untamed thing that no one had ever I flung net over. Boys adored hin1-for his gallantry suppose gallant being the first and last adjective for him and I have often been amused by the slavish way in which they initiated him. Lord Lucas does it.. explained many odd changes. And soldiers in hospital loved him, the Tommies who lie in rows and have the manners of public school boys. They got to know him in the great coun- try home he made for them from the be- ginning of the war, it's motto
 Fight on, my men, Sir Roberts said, Though somewhat hurt I am not slain, l I'll but lie down and bleed awhile | And then I'll rise and fight again. He had been in the government, and was mellowing, I think, into man of much wisdom. who would have done things of value for the state. And no doubt he would have wished to be spared to try to do them but not at the cost of the loss of those wonderful months in the air which I am very sure, were to him worth dying for"