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
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
and was the third of ten children. One of her younger sisters was
Hope Temple
Hope Temple, born as Alice Maude Davis (27 December 1859 – 10 May 1938) was an Irish songwriter and composer. She was also known as Mrs André Messager.
Life
Alice Davis was born in Dublin, Ireland, and was known professionally as Hope Templ ...
.
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
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
,
"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
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
on 13 October 1906 and was buried in
Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery in
Golders Green
Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th century and ea ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, 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
A Stradivarius is one of the violins, violas, cellos and other string instruments built by members of the Italian family Stradivari, particularly Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Antonius Stradivarius), during the 17th and 18th centuries. They are co ...
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
In developed nations around the world, the lower middle class is a subdivision of the greater middle class. Universally, the term refers to the group of middle class households or individuals who have not attained the status of the upper middle ...
working women.
References
External links
National Archives
Art UK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis-Hill, Ada
British philanthropists
1844 births
1906 deaths
British women