People on board

LEWIS, Arthur Wilfred

Arthur Wilfred Lewis was born in Blackheath, London on the 3rd of April 1875 to William Bourne Lewis and Emily Cooke. They were both from this affluent area of the city and this is where the family continued to live. Arthur, the youngest of their eight children, was baptised in the Blackheath Congregational Church. William was a Civil Engineer and this was also the career that Arthur chose, following six years at Blackheath School and three years at the Central Technical College.

On the 28th of December 1905 Arthur married Isoline Maud, daughter of Judge Steavenson of Castle Carrock, Cumberland. The two eldest of their five children were born in Cumberland, the others in London. In 1918 Arthur was working with the engineering firm Lewis and Lewis (later Lewis and Duvivier), who were Consultant Engineers to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. He was probably on company business in Ireland and returning on the 10th of October 1918 when the RMS Leinster was sunk by torpedo. Arthur managed to get on a life raft and helped a New Zealand and an Australian soldier to hang on until they were rescued by HMS Helga.

In the 1939 Register Arthur and Isoline were living in Beckenham, where he was a Consultant in Civil Engineering. Living with them was their eldest son Wilfred Bennett, who became a nuclear physicist, winning many awards including a C.B.E. He later moved to Canada and led the Canadian nuclear power programme. Arthur Wilfred Lewis died in Beckenham in November 1944.