Person    | Female  Born 26/4/1844  Died 13/10/1906

Ada Lewis-Hill

Categories: Philanthropy

Countries: Ireland

Ada Hannah Lewis-Hill, philanthropist. Born Liverpool but brought up in a large family in Dublin where she married Samuel Lewis in 1867. They lived in Grosvenor Square until his death in 1901, when she was left a fortune. In 1904 she married William James Montagu Hill. He added her name to his to become Lewis-Hill. See William Burdett-Coutts for more examples of this. Wikipedia describes him as a moneylender to the aristocracy, but he was also an army officer more than 30 years her junior. Possibly the moneylending came after his marriage. Her marriage to William has interesting similarities with that of Angela Burdett-Coutts to her William.

1905 she founded the Ada Lewis Nurses' Institute. 1906 she became one of the two wealthiest women in the UK, the other being Lucy Cohen (one of the Rothschilds), not Angela Burdett-Coutts. Oddly all 3 of these rich women died in 1906. 

Having loved music and been a violinist herself, in her will she endowed the Royal Academy of Music and left her Stradivarius violin to the president of the Royal Academy for the use of the Ada Lewis scholars. 1913 the Ada Lewis Women's Lodging House was opened.

One of her younger sisters was the Irish songwriter and composer, Hope Temple (born Alice Maude Davis, 1859 -1938, also known as Mrs André Messager).

Wikipedia gives two dates for her birth: 26 April and 29 June. Nowhere can we find a record of any children born to Ada.

Looking for more on Ada's second husband, we have found a number of records of William James Montagu Hill (who may be our man) in the army, the earliest of him as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1897. 1902-3 he is given as a Lieutenant in the Scots Guard. 1917, as a Captain, he was honoured with a DSO.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Ada Lewis-Hill

Commemorated ati

Ada House

Ada House This block was built in 1937 by the London County Council and was n...

Read More

Other Subjects

Robert Bell

Robert Bell

Elizabethan seafarer. With Peter Hill he co-founded the St Mary Rotherhithe Free School, to educate the sons of local seafarers. In the nearby church of St Mary the Virgin there is a brass plate co...

Person, Education, Philanthropy, Transport

1 memorial
Sir John Cass

Sir John Cass

Tory politician, slave trader and philanthropist. Date of birth unknown so we use his date of baptism, which took place at St Botolph, Aldgate. 1705 became a director of the Royal African Company w...

Person, Philanthropy, Politics & Administration, Race Issues

2 memorials
Mary Overie

Mary Overie

Traditions vary but one is that Mary was the daughter of John Overs, a very successful Thames ferryman in the tenth century.  She gave her inherited wealth to fund a convent which became St Mary Ov...

Fiction, Philanthropy, Religion

1 memorial
William Lambe

William Lambe

1569-1570 Master of the Clothworkers' Company. Three wives but childless which allowed for his philanthropy. 1564-1577 he financed the rebuilding of the Holborn Conduit which, until its demolition ...

Person, Food & Drink, Philanthropy, Politics & Administration

3 memorials
Chauncy Hare Townshend

Chauncy Hare Townshend

Collector, dilettante, ordained clergyman, mesmerist, and hypochondriac (list from Wikipedia). Born Godalming into a wealthy family. Famous for his 1821 meeting with the poet John Clare (whom he i...

Person, Museums / Libraries, Philanthropy

1 memorial