Warren Lewis

This article is about the British Army officer. For the South African association footballer, see Warren Lewis (footballer).

Warren Hamilton (W. H.) Lewis (June 16, 1895 – April 9, 1973) was an Irish British Army officer and historian, best known as the brother of the author and professor C. S. Lewis. Warren Lewis was a supply officer with the Royal Army Service Corps of the British Army during and after World War I. After retiring during 1932 to live with his brother in Oxford, he was one of the initial 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.

Early life

C. S. Lewis referred to his older brother, Warren (“Warnie”), as “my dearest and closest friend.” The lifelong friendship 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"). During 1908 their mother died from cancer and as their father mourned her, C. S. ("Jack") and Warren Lewis had only each other for comfort and support. Soon after their mother's death, Jack was sent across the channel to join Warren Lewis at an English boarding school named Wynyard in Watford, just northwest of London, where they both endured a harsh headmaster named Robert Capron. Warren had been taken there by his mother Flora on May 10, 1905. During 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 during 1913.

Military service

He had 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 of 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,^[1] and was sent to France on November 4, 1914 to serve with the 4th Company 7th Divisional Train British Expeditionary Force.

Warren Lewis served in such postings as Belgium (1919), Aldershot (November 1919), Sierra Leone (March 9, 1921 to March 23, 1922), Colchester (October 4, 1922 to December 1925), Woolwich (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 began residence at The Kilns (Headington), where he lived until after his brother’s death in 1963.

Personal life

Warren Lewis renewed his Christian faith five months before his brother’s conversion, during 1929. He was a frequent participant of weekly meetings of the Inklings and recorded comments about them in many of his diary entries. During the 1930s, the Lewis brothers undertook eight annual walking tours of as many as 50 miles (80 km), which Warren years later recalled with fondness, saying, "And jolly good fun they were too."

Warren Lewis was an alcoholic from a young age, and his drinking binges concerned and worried his brother.

Writings

Soon after his first retirement during 1932, Warren Lewis edited the Lewis family papers. During his final retirement he began researching a topic of his lifelong interest: the history of 17th-century France. As W. H. Lewis, he published seven books on France during the reign 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 an informal Festschrift to benefit Williams' widow.

After C. S. Lewis died during 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. During 1982, selections from Warren Lewis' diary were published under the title Brothers and Friends.

Publications

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

Footnotes

1. Archives, Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Bibliography

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

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

• 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