Welsh Journals

Mrs Lewis of Greenmeadow By ANNE LYNN JONES ON 28th August, 1839, a wedding took place at St. George's, Hanover Square, be- tween a widow of 46 and a bachelor of 34. The widow, Mary Anne Lewis of Grosvenor Gate and Pant- gwynlais, was now to be known as Mrs Disraeli. Much later in 1868, Queen Victoria was to bestow upon her the title of Viscountess Beaconsfield, so that at 76 she was to be not only the wife of a Prime Minister, but a peeress in her own right. This day in August, then, was a momentous one for Mary Anne, and her life as the wife of one of the greatest statesman England has ever known, has been much written about. But this was not, of course, the first time she had stood at the altar as a bride, and it is her earlier marriage which is of most interest to us in Wales. More than twenty years before, she had married at the Parish Church of Clifton, a wealthy Welsh coal-owner and landlord. Wyndham Lewis of Greenmeadow, in the County of Glamorgan. Her marriage to Mr Lewis was regarded as a brilliant match for the volatile and charming Mary Anne, whose father John Evans, was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Wyndham Lewis was the third son of the Rev William Lewis who, with his brother, held the estates of Newhouse and Greenmeadow. Wyndham never actually owned Greenmeadow, but it is believed that his elder brother, Henry, leased it to him. Henry himself resided at Park, becoming known as 'Henry Lewis of Park', which title may still be clearly seen, carved on the stone erected over the family vault in a corner of the little churchyard at Llanilterne. It is probable that Wyndham and Mary Anne met in Bristol at one of the balls given in the year of Waterloo by a mutual acquaintance, General Vernon-Graham. His mother, a Cardiff lady, was a friend of the Lewis family. Mary Anne, although born in Devon, had come to live at Clifton with her mother and step-father. She was by no means well-to-do, but had acquired a certain social standing. Whilst never