Ada Hannah Lewis-Hill born (26 April 1844–13 October 1906) was an English amateur musician and philanthropist.
She was a well-known financier of the arts and lover of music, and played the violin and cello; however she was not considered particularly gifted.
Ada Davies was born on 29 June 1844 into a
Jewish family in
Liverpool and was the third of ten children. One of her younger sisters was
Hope Temple.
She was brought up in Dublin, where she married the financier and philanthropist
Samuel Lewis in 1867, and lived with him in
Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the Mayfair district of London. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from the duke's surname "Grosvenor". It was developed for fashionable re ...
until his death in 1901. Ada Lewis was left with a fortune of £2.6 million following her husband's death, of which over £1 million was left to various charities. On 13 July 1904, Ada Lewis married
William James Montagu Lewis-Hill,
"a noted Jewish moneylender to the aristocracy".
In 1905, she founded the Ada Lewis Nurses' Institute. As of 1906, she became one of the two wealthiest women in the United Kingdom.
Lewis-Hill died of
cancer on 13 October 1906 and was buried in
Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery in
Golders Green,
London, together with Samuel.
Upon her death, she endowed the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
with fifteen scholarships at a cost of nearly £20,000 and generous yearly subscriptions.
She left her
Stradivarius violin to the president of the Royal Academy for the use of the Ada Lewis scholars. The Ada Lewis Women's Lodging House was also opened in her honour in 1913, to provide housing for single,
lower-middle class working women.
References
External links
National Archives
Art UK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis-Hill, Ada
British philanthropists
1844 births
1906 deaths
British women