Edmund Butterworth Lewis
Mayor of Oxford 1920/1
Edmund Butterworth Lewis (1871–1947) was born at 39 Herbert Street, Hightown, Cheetham, near Manchester. His father, Henry Lewis, was born in Ombersley in Worcestershire in 1846 and his mother Mary Frances in Moston, Lancashire in 1847.
In about 1875 his family moved to another house in Hightown, 24 Walnut Street, where Edmund can be found at the age of 9 in the 1881 census. He has four younger siblings: Edith (7), Thomas (5), Frances (3), and Russell (8 months), and their father, Henry Lewis (34) is described as a draper’s buyer,
Meanshile down in Oxford, by 1877 Faithful Cape had founded Cape’s Drapery Store at 26 St Ebbe’s Street. He expanded into No. 29 in the 1880s, and in 1887 rebuilt Nos. 30 and 31 to match No. 29. Cape retired in 1888, selling the business to Daniel Bailey of Bristol, who expanded it again to 47 Church Street. In 1893 Bailey in turn sold out to Edmund’s father Henry for £10,865 5s., which included stock and fixtures and furniture.
Thus in 1893, when Edmund was 19, his family moved to Oxford to run Cape’s. The family can be found in the 1901 census living at 125 Woodstock Road. Edmund’s father (53) is described as a draper; Edmund himself at the age of 29 is a draper’s assistant, and his sister Frances (23) is a draper’s cashier. The only other sibling still at home is Ernest (14). Also in the house are the sister-in-law of Edmund’s father, Miss Elizabeth Farrar (66), a visitor called William Aldis who was a Professor of Mathematics, and one servant.
Edmund’s father further expanded Cape’s to include 28 St Ebbe’s Street in 1899 and No. 32 in 1900. In 1900 he also bought 8 St Ebbe’s Street on the other side of the road for a wool shop, and opened his first branch at 86–90 Cowley Road. In 1904 he bought the lease of 71 and 72 Walton Street for another branch. By 1905 he had also bought 11 and 12 St Ebbe’s Street for Cape’s menswear and shoe departments, and then Nos. 7 and 8 for a furnishing department.
Edmund’s father was a Methodist and a member of the United Methodist Church in St Michael’s Street He himself served on the city council from 1907 to 1921.
Edmund and his two brothers all went into their father’s business as buyers with a seat on the board. Edmund, who was the buyer for mantles, joined the Oxford Chamber of Trade in 1907, and was chosen as its President in 1910 and 1911. He followed his father on to the council in 1908 as the Liberal representative of the East Ward.
By 1914 Lewis had moved to 228 Iffley Road. On the death of his father in 1921, and he and his two brothers Tom and Russell took over Cape’s.
Lewis was elected Sheriff of Oxford in 1919 and Mayor the next year, and was made a Justice of the Peace in November 1926. He continued as a councillor until 1929, when he was elected an Alderman, and he served the council in this capacity for the rest of his life.
Lewis was President of the Cumberland Road Allotments Association and the Oxford representative on the Thames Conservancy Board from 1925. He was also President of the National Chamber of Trade in 1928.
In 1928 Lewis opened another branch of Cape’s in Headington (6 Windmill Road), and in 1932 he moved into a newly-built house at 4 Latimer Road, Headington.
Lewis died at the age of 75 in an Oxford nursing home on 24 October 1947, leaving a wife but no children. His funeral was at the Wesley Memorial Church, followed by cremation at Oxford Crematorium.
Lewis’s nephew, Major Anthony Lewis, continued to run Cape’s until its closure in 1971.
See also:
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 10 November 1920, p. 1 (full front-page photograph of "Oxford’s New Mayor")
- Oxford Times, 31 October 1947, p. 8e (obituary)
- 1881 Census: Lancashire (Cheetham): 4024/106
- 1901 Census: Oxford (SS Philip & James), 1381/97
- Richard Foster, F. Cape & Co of St Ebbe’s St Oxford. From Drapers Shop to Department Store (Oxford City & County Museum, Publication No. 3, 1973)