SIR GEORGE LEWIS--KING'S SOLICITOR AND FRIEND
A SOCIAL FORCE
Lord Russel said of him:
"What is most remarkable in Lewis is not his knowledge of the law,
which is very great, nor his skill in the conduct of difficult
causes, in which he is unrivalled, nor his tact, nor his genius for
compromise. It is his courage."
That was said not long after the Parnell trial, in which Lord
Russell--then Sir Charles Russell and afterwards Lord Chief Justice
of England--who had long been at the head of the English Bar of his
own time, proved himself the equal of any advocate of any time. Yet
he must divide the honours of that trial with Sir George Lewis. The
profession, or the two professions of barrister and solicitor,
divided them if the public did not. The public has almost never the
means of judging. The work of preparing a great cause is carried on
in the solicitor's office. The barrister takes it up ready made and
the way in which he handles his material is seen of all men. But no
barrister badly briefed could make much of a complicated case. In no
trial was this truer than in the Parnell trial. Parnell was perhaps
the greatest political {302} leader of his time, and the least
scrupulous. He had a black record, and the men behind him a blacker.
Not even Sir George Lewis could wash it all white, but without him
the judgment would have gone far more heavily against the Irish
dictator. And if ever there was a case in which Lord Russell's
eulogy on Sir George Lewis was to the point it was the Parnell case.
It needed all his courage in handling facts to save his client from a
condemnation which would have carried with it his banishment from
public life. Mr. Gladstone marked his sense of the service done by
making Mr. George Lewis Sir George Lewis. The knighthood some years
later became a baronetcy, the late King, I believe, suggesting it.
For the late King, while Prince of Wales, had stood to the great
solicitor in the relation of client, and this business connection had
become one of friendship. They were much together at Homburg, where
both spent three or four weeks each year for many years. Homburg is
a place where the houses are of glass and everything is known. The
Prince gave his dinners at Ritter's or at the Kursaal in the open
air. If he went afterward to play whist--for these were ante-bridge
days--at Mr. Lewis's rooms, that was known. Nor is publicity, so far
as Prince and King are concerned, much less in England, and when Mr.
Lewis dined at Marlborough House, or was present at a levee at St.
James's Palace, or was a guest at Sandringham, all these things were
of common knowledge. And since the English are a very loyal people,
who {303} had a strong personal attachment to their late King, the
confidence and liking the King showed him won for Sir George the
confidence and liking of others.
This great and eventful career has lasted more than fifty years, and
with the end of 1909 Sir George Lewis, being seventy-six years old,
retired from business, leaving his son, Mr. George Lewis, and his
other partner, Mr. Reginald Poole, both for many years his
associates, to be his successors. Both are widely known as learned
and skilful in the law; both have been trained in Sir George's
methods; and the new firm is still, like the old, known as Lewis &
Lewis, and they are still of Ely Place, Holborn.
It is characteristic of old days and ways in London that Sir George
Lewis was born in one of the three houses now occupied by the firm.
His father was a solicitor before him; a man of repute and ability,
yet none the less is this vast business the creation of the son.
There are in London many firms of solicitors known the world over;
the Messrs. Freshfield, for example, solicitors to the Bank of
England. But there is seldom or never a fame due to one man. It is
due to combined action, to organization, to concentration upon one
kind of business. The firm of Lewis & Lewis knew no limitations.
The public thought of Sir George Lewis as the man to whom the conduct
of great causes was habitually entrusted; sometimes criminal,
sometimes social, often divorce cases, often those causes in which
the honour of a great name {304} or a great family is involved.
True, but the business of Messrs. Lewis & Lewis was first of all a
great commercial business. Sir George's permanent clients were among
the city firms famous in finance, or in banking or in industry. That
was the backbone of the business and continues to be.
The first case in which Mr. Lewis made himself known to the public
arose out of the failure of Overend, Gurney & Co., then one of the
leading houses in the City of London. He fought that case
single-handed against barristers of renown; a bold thing for a
solicitor to do, and perhaps without precedent. He did the same
thing in the Bravo murder case, and held his own, and more than his
own, against Attorney-General and Solicitor-General. No doubt, had
he chosen, he might have gone to the Bar and become distinguished at
the Bar, but not so had he chosen to model his life. He never could
have played the part he has, had he done that. For the dividing line
between solicitor and barrister in England is just as clearly drawn
as ever. You may be one or the other; you cannot be both; you may
pass from one to the other, but you must elect between the two.
I ask myself sometimes what London society would be to-day had there
been no Sir George Lewis. It certainly would not be what it is.
There have been many, many _causes célèbres_ in which his name has
figured in open court, or in the still more open newspapers. But
they are as {305} one to a hundred of those which have never been
tried, and never supplied material for legal proceedings or for
printed scandal. The simple truth is that Sir George Lewis, though
the most successful of solicitors in contested causes, has made fame
and fortune by keeping cases out of court and out of print. He
carried the art of compromise to its highest point. He saw that
alike in the interests of his clients and of the public, and in his
own interest also, the greatest service he could do was to prevent
litigation. On that he has acted consistently for fifty years.
Of how many lawyers can anything like that be said? Sir George Lewis
stands alone. The money results of his policy are splendid. His
renown is splendid. But the misery he has soothed and the social
disruptions and disturbances and far-reaching disasters he has
prevented are a tribute more splendid still. And perhaps never has
the value of his advice been so evident as when it has been rejected.
In the matter which shook London society perhaps more than any other
of recent years, Sir George Lewis on one side, and a brilliant young
solicitor, Mr. Charles Russell, son of the late Lord Chief Justice,
on the other, had come to an agreement. The instrument they had
drawn jointly was ready for signature. So quietly had all this
distressing business been transacted that, had the instrument been
signed then and there, the world would never have heard there had
been a disagreement till it learned there had been a settlement.
{306} But outside influences intervened. One of the two signatures
was withheld. Then scandal broke loose and the sewers of London
overflowed all winter. There were reproaches, recriminations,
divisions; all London taking one side or the other. Then in the
spring the same instrument, word for word, was signed. The
solicitors had never wavered nor perhaps ever doubted that since they
were agreed their clients must ultimately agree. It is a typical
example of Sir George Lewis's methods. But the mischief that had
been done by intruders could not be undone.
Sleeping for half a century, or for only years and months, in the
black japanned tin boxes which line the walls in Ely Place and in his
safes were papers enough to compromise half London and scandalize the
other half. Sir George, reflecting some years ago on this state of
things, looked through the collection and then burnt the whole. That
is the best possible answer to the foolish story that he intended
writing his memoirs. His sense of professional etiquette and his
sense of honour may both be judged in the light of these flaming
documents. It had been necessary, of course, to preserve some of
these papers for a time, on the chance of their being needed again.
But think of the relief with which hundreds and hundreds of people
heard of the burning! It is almost as if the tragedies of which all
record was thus destroyed had never happened.[1]
[1] I have since asked Sir George himself about this conflagration
story. He answered: "Yes, it is true, but there are things
here"--touching his forehead--"which I can neither burn nor forget."
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Sir George Lewis could coerce as well as coax. He could use threats,
but never a threat he was not ready to fulfil. By and by his
character came to be so well understood that a letter from Ely Place
became almost a summons to surrender. But always on reasonable
terms. With all that, he had a kindness of heart to which thousands
of people can testify. I suppose no lawyer ever did so much for
clients without fee or reward. If you were his friend, if you were
of a profession, if you came to him with a letter from some friend,
if you came to him in poverty with a case of oppression, he would
take infinite pains for you and no fee. He had all sorts of
out-of-the-way knowledge; copyright law, for one, on which he was an
authority, and in which few solicitors are authorities. There is
this link between copyright in books and in plays and theatrical
contracts; the contract is commonly drawn by the publisher or
manager, who is a man of business; and the author or actor, who is
not, is expected to accept it. It was this solicitor's pleasure to
redress that balance.
He was a law reformer. Again unlike most successful men who are apt
to be content with things as they are. The letters he wrote to _The
Times_ on such matters as the creation of a Court of Criminal Appeal,
alteration in the law of divorce, the administration of Justice, and
other high legal questions show him a great scientific lawyer, with a
mastery of principles. He has essentially a legal mind, and he wrote
with a luminous precision and force not always characteristic of the
legal mind. And he had what every {308} judge on the bench ought to
have, and a few of the greatest really have, an unerring perception
of such facts as are essential, and a power of dismissing all the
rest. Sir George Jessel had that; one of the greatest judges.
Students of ethnology may remark with interest that both were Jews.
When such a man quits the stage it is an irreparable loss to his
friends, to his clients, and to the world generally. The feeling is
more than regret, for ties are broken which never existed before and
will never exist again. Sir George Lewis's position was unique
because his personality is unique. So will his fame be. Reputation
in the law is for the most part transitory. But this will endure.
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