LUCK, JOHN EDMUND (1840-96) was born at Peckham, London. His father belonged to a Protestant family in Kent, but became a Catholic during his stay in France. Studious as a child, John went at the age of nine to St Edmund's School in Hertfordshire.

During his vacations he came into contact with the Benedictine fathers of the Congregation of the Primitive Observance at Ramsgate, and in 1858 he decided to become a monk. With that in view he studied philosophy at the seminary of St Sulpice in Paris, and in 1860 he joined the order (taking the name of Edmund). He was sent to the monastic college of St Ambrogio, in Rome, and prosecuted his theological studies at the Collegio Romano, where he took his D.D. (1865). His father (Alfred Luck) had meanwhile built the monastery at Ramsgate at his own expense; had with the sanction of the Pope been ordained a priest (1863) and died in 1864, leaving his own home to house St Augustine's College. John completed his theological course, was ordained priest (1865), and spent two years at Subiaco, where he taught philosophy. In 1867 he assisted in the foundation of a novitiate at Tenterden, Kent. Here he fulfilled the duties of novice master and administered the temporalities. In 1872 Luck was appointed superior of the monastery and college and in 1875, his health having failed, he was appointed assistant-chaplain at Hales Place, Canterbury. During this period he translated and published the Short Meditations.

In 1878 he returned to the monastery at Ramsgate, and was vice-president of the college until the end of 1880, when the abbot-general of the Congregation decided to employ him in the foundation of a novitiate for the Italian province in Malta. While on his way to that post he was appointed Bishop of Auckland, and on 13 Aug 1882 he was consecrated by Cardinal Manning in the prioral church of St Augustine, Ramsgate. Arriving in Auckland on 14 Nov 1882, he met his brother (Father F. A. Luck, O.S.B., 1841-99), who had preceded him by 18 months. During his episcopate of 13 years, Bishop Luck opened 19 new churches in the Auckland diocese, extended St Patrick's Cathedral and established 13 schools and eight convents (including the Home for the Aged Poor at Ponsonby). The number of priests in the diocese increased from 15 to 30, the Marist Brothers were introduced, and various extensions and new organisations carried out.

Luck was scholarly and studious, a charming conversationalist, an eloquent preacher, an accomplished musician and a skilled botanist and horticulturist. He wrote in 1888 an introduction to Pompallier's history of the Church in Oceania. His death occurred on 23 Jan 1896.

N.Z. Herald, 9 Aug 1882, 24 Jan 1896 (p).

Reference: Volume 1, page 269

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