Warren Lewis

Major Warren Hamilton (W.H.) Lewis (June 16, 1895 – April 9, 1973) was a soldier and historian, best known as the brother of the British writer and academic C. S. Lewis. Warren Lewis was a supply officer with the Royal Army Service Corps in the British army during and after World War I. After retiring in 1932 to live with his brother in Oxford, he was one of the founding members of the Inklings, an informal Oxford literary society. He wrote on French history, and served as his brother's secretary for the later years of C. S. Lewis's life.

Brother of C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis referred to his older brother, Warren (“Warnie”), as “my dearest and closest friend.” The lifelong bond formed as the boys played together in their home, Little Lea, on the outskirts of Belfast, writing and illustrating stories for their created world called "Boxen" (a combination of India and a previous incarnation called "Animal-Land"). In 1908 their mother died from cancer and as their father grieved her, C. S. ("Jack") and Warren Lewis were left with only each other for comfort and support. Shortly after their mother's death, Jack was sent across the channel to join Warren Lewis at an English boarding school called Wynyard in Watford, just northwest of London, where they both suffered under an insane headmaster named Robert Capron. Warren had been taken there by his mother Flora on May 10, 1905. In 1909, Warren Lewis transferred to Malvern College in Worcestershire (Mid-West England) and was followed there by his brother a few years later. Warren Lewis completed his education at Malvern in 1913, took private studies with W.T. Kirkpatrick for four months in preparation for the army entrance exam, beginning on September 10, 1913, and finished 21st among over 201 candidates taking the exam, entitling him to a "prize cadetship" with which he entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst on February 4, 1914. This enabled him a reduction in the cost of attendance. He was appointed a commission on September 29 as a second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps after only nine months of training (due to wartime need; the normal course of study was eighteen months to two years), left Sandhurst on October 1, [Archives, Royal Military College, Sandhurst.] and was sent to France on November 4, 1914 to serve with the 4th Company 7th Divisional Train British Expeditionary Force. On November 10, 1918, the war ended, and the next day the Armistice was signed.

Warren Lewis served in such postings as Belgium (1919), Aldershot, England (November 1919), Sierra Leone (March 9, 1921 to March 23, 1922), Colchester, England (October 4, 1922 to December 1925), Woolwich, England (January 1925 until April 1927), and China (two tours of duty, the first beginning on April 11, 1927 in Kowloon, South China, then later in Shanghai, and ending in April 1930; the second beginning on October 9, 1931 and ending on December 14, 1932). After retiring with the rank of captain from 18 years of active service on December 21, 1932 (he was granted a temporary rank of major when recalled to active service on September 4, 1939), he took up residence at The Kilns (Headington, Oxford), where he lived until after his brother’s death in 1963.

Warren Lewis returned to belief in Christianity five months before his brother’s conversion, in 1929. He was a frequent participant in weekly meetings of the Inklings and recorded the flavour of them in many of his diary entries. During the 1930s, the Lewis brothers undertook eight annual walking tours of up to fifty miles (80 km), which Warren years later recalled with fondness, saying, "And jolly good fun they were too." Warren Lewis's 40-year battle with alcoholism went through periods of success and failure and his drinking binges concerned and worried his brother.

Writings

Upon his first retirement in 1932, Warren Lewis edited the Lewis family papers. During his final retirement he turned to a subject of his lifelong interest: the history of 17th-century France. As W.H. Lewis, he published seven books on France during the times of Louis XIV, including "The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV" and "Levantine Adventurer: The travels and missions of the Chevalier d'Arvieux, 1653–1697". An excerpt from "The Splendid Century" appeared first in "Essays Presented to Charles Williams", a volume edited by his brother as a kind of Festschrift to benefit the widow of Williams.

After C. S. Lewis died in 1963, Warren edited the first published edition of his brother's letters (1966), adding a memoir of his brother as a preface to the letters. Later editions of these letters were edited by Walter Hooper.

Before his death, Warren Lewis deposited many of the Lewis family papers, including surviving papers of C. S. Lewis and himself, in the Marion E. Wade Collection of Wheaton College. In 1982, selections from Warren Lewis's diary were published under the title "Brothers and Friends".

Publications

* W.H. Lewis. "The Lewis Papers: Memoirs of the Lewis Family". Privately printed in 1933.
* W.H. Lewis. "The Galleys of France." In "Essays Presented to Charles Williams". Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1947.
* W.H. Lewis. "The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV." Eyre & Spottiswoode. London. 1953.
* W.H. Lewis. "The Sunset of the Splendid Century: The Life and Times of Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Duc de Maine, ." Eyre & Spottiswoode. London. 1955.
* W.H. Lewis. "Assault on Olympus: The Rise of the House of Gramont between 1604 and 1678." Andre Deutsch. London. 1958.
* W.H. Lewis. "Louis XIV: An Informal Portrait." Andre Deutsch. London. 1959.
* W.H. Lewis. "The Scandalous Regent: A Life of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, , and of his family." Andre Deutsch. London. 1961.
* W.H. Lewis. "Levantine Adventurer: The Travels and Missions of the Chevalier d'Arvieux, ." Andre Deutsch. London. 1962.
* W.H. Lewis. "Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon." B.T. Batsford. London. 1964.
* W.H. Lewis. "Letters of C. S. Lewis." Geoffrey Bles Ltd. London. 1966.

Footnotes

1. Archives, Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Bibliography

* Diana Pavlac Glyer - "The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community". Kent State University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN

* Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead - "Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis". Harper & Row Publishers. San Francisco. 1982. ISBN -X

* Warren H. Lewis - "The Lewis Papers: Memoirs of the Lewis Family ". Unpublished manuscripts housed in the Marion E. Wade Center. Wheaton, Illinois.

* John Smyth - "Sandhurst: The History of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst 1741-1961". London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1961.

* Hugh Thomas - "The Story of Sandhurst". London: Hutchinson & Co., 1961.

*A. N. Wilson - "C. S. Lewis: A Biography". W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN

References