[1][2] After secondary education at Bedford School, Lucas attended New College, Oxford, where he graduated with a B.A.
[4] He was admitted to King's College, Cambridge, where he studied fungi that infect plant roots and graduated with a Ph.D. in 1953.
During his curatorship he dealt with Dutch elm disease, the Great Storm of 1987,[1][6] and the abolition in 1991 of Parson's Pleasure.
[1] Lucas chaired the University of Oxford's Delegacy for Local Examinations from 1981 to 1990.
[8] His wife Pamela was for many years a churchwarden at the Church of St Nicholas, Old Marston.