CHAPTER XXXII

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."

{307}

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.

{309}