Edwin Lewis (1838-1907)

Edwin Lewis Meadows was born in Stepney on 14 January 1838, a son of James Meadows, and trained, like his brothers, under his father. He became an accomplished landscape painter, exhibiting 26 times at the Royal Academy, 17 times at the British Institution and 55 times at Suffolk Street, as well as at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin. His subjects were views in Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey and the Isle of Wight, with some coastal scenes.

In 1863 he married Emily Jessie Whittet at St Mary’s, Stratford Bow, and the couple lived in Leytonstone and later Woodford, where their four children grew up. Around 1890 the family moved to Kent, and Edwin, surprisingly, became manager of a cement works at Frindsbury, across the Medway from Rochester. He kept painting, producing a series of views of Frindsbury Hill and Rochester.

Edwin died at the end of 1907, his death registered at Sevenoaks. He is Roger and Jeff’s great-grandfather, and his full story is on Edwin Lewis’s page.

Works in public collections

Paintings by Edwin Lewis Meadows in UK public collections, as recorded by Art UK.

• Landscape with an Old Mill, 1857–1867 — York Art Gallery