Rev. William Collings Lukis MA. FSA (8 April 1817 in

Guernsey Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...

– 7 December 1892 in

Wath Wath may refer to: Places in England * Wath, Cumbria, a U.K. location * Wath (near Ripon), a village in Harrogate district, North Yorkshire * Wath, Ryedale, a village in North Yorkshire * Wath-in-Nidderdale Wath, sometimes known as Wath-in ...

North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire is a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point is at Mickle Fell with 2,585 ft (788 metres). From the Restoration it was used ...

) was a British

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

archeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes ...

and

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

. William Collings Lukis was the third son of Frederick Corbin Lukis, the Colonel of Guernsey Militia. He was educated at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. He was married to Lucy Adelaide, daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas Fellowes. Lukis is best remembered in England for his work on Church Bells which was published in 1857. He was the first person to publish a collection of bell descriptions, chiefly from Wiltshire. He was a founder member of the

Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society was founded in 1853, and is one of the largest county-based archaeological societies in the United Kingdom. It runs the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, Wiltshire which has the best Bronze Ag ...

and an authority on perspective drawing. It is his drawings of the Saxon church in Bradford on Avon, where he was curate from 1841 to 1846, that formed the basis for the illustrations for WH Jones's article on the Saxon Church in WAM V, and acknowledged by Jones in WAM XIII. Lukis is also remembered for his work on the

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

s of Great Britain and France; with his university friend Sir Henry Dryden he surveyed the megalithic monuments of

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...

. He was ordained in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...

in 1845, and after holding several livings in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

he moved to

in Yorkshire, where he carried out a number of excavations. He published a treatise on ancient church plate in 1845 and was a regular contributor to the journals of the

British Archaeological Association The British Archaeological Association (BAA) was founded in 1843 and aims to inspire, support and disseminate high quality research in the fields of Western archaeology, art and architecture, primarily of the mediaeval period, through lectures, co ...

and other learned societies. His collection of artefacts was bought by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

after his death. His sister Louisa was married to

William Thomas Collings William Thomas Collings (4 September 1823 – 7 March 1882) was a clergyman of the Church of England who served as Seigneur of Sark from 1853 to 1882. Ecclesiastical career Collings was the son of Marie and Thomas Guerin Collings (1786–18 ...

Seigneur of Sark The Seigneur of Sark is the head of Sark in the Channel Islands. " Seigneur" is the French word for "lord", and a female head of Sark is called Dame of Sark, of which there have been three. The husband of a female ruler of Sark is not a consort ...

, and is the ancestor of the island's ruler until 2016, Michael Beaumont.

Works

*''Prehistoric Stone Monuments of the British Isles: Cornwall'' With 40 tinted litho plates, accurately drawn to scale by W. C. Lukis and W. C. Borlase. Society of Antiquaries, 1885. *''An Account of Church Bells: With Some Notices of Wiltshire Bells and Bell Founders. Containing a copious List of Founders, a comparative scale of tenor bells, and inscriptions from nearly five hundred parishes in various parts of the Kingdom''. 1857. *''A Guide to the Principal Chambered Barrows and other Pre-historic Monuments in the Islands of the Morbihan, the communes of Locmariaker, Carnac, Plouharnel and Erdeven, and the peninsulas of Quiberon and Rhuis, Brittany''. 1875. *''On the class of rude stone monuments which are commonly called in England cromlechs, and in France dolmens, and are here shown to have been the sepulchral chambers of once-existing mounds. Prevailing errors on the subject refuted by a critical examination of the monuments referred to by the maintainers of these errors''. 1875. *"Danish Cromlechs and Burial Customs compared with those of Brittany, the Channel Islands, and Great Britain". '' Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine'' 8 (1864) pp. 145–69. *''A Pocket guide to the principal rude Stone monuments of Brittany''. 1875. *''Specimens of Ancient Church Plate.'' 1845.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lukis, William Collings 1817 births 1892 deaths English antiquarians Guernsey people Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London