Erasmus Lewis
Erasmus Lewis, his wife and cousin are buried in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey, adjoining the grave of the Reverend C. Cracherode but the inscription is now very faint. He was buried on 15th January 1754 and the Abbey funeral book gives his age as 83 and as from Abercothy in Carmarthen, Wales. He was a son of the Reverend George Lewis, vicar of Abergwili and his wife Margaret (daughter of Sir Thomas Stepney). His brothers were George and Bernard. Baptised on 29th April 1671 he was a King's Scholar at Westminster School and after attending Cambridge university he travelled abroad and was secretary to the Earl of Manchester and to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, who was his patron. He was also secretary to the embassy in Brussels and then under Secretary of State. He was Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel and a friend of Swift and Pope. His wife was Anne Bateman (nee Jennings), whom he married at St Martin in the Fields in 1724, but they had no children. She was buried on 25th November 1736 aged 66.
Elizabeth Lewis his cousin who lived with him in Cork Street was buried on 10th November 1762 aged 65. She left her estates in Carmarthen to the son of her sister Frances Price and money to her brother Herbert, living in Barbados.
His cousins George and Dorothy Stepney are also buried in the Abbey.
Further reading
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