sponsored by the Daily Telegraph were the expedition of the archaeologist George Smith [q.v.] to Assyria in 1873, when certain cuneiform records of the Deluge story were discovered; the joint enterprise with the New York Herald in 1874, when (Sir) Henry Morton Stanley [q.v.] was commissioned to complete David Livingstone's work in ‘Darkest Africa’ and explore the sources of the Congo; and the assistance given in 1884 to the expedition of Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston to (Mount) Kilima Njaro in East Africa.
Lawson was created a baronet in 1892, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Burnham in 1903, when he retired from active control of the Daily Telegraph and handed over the reins to his elder son. He received the K.C.V.O. in 1904. By that time he was universally recognized as the doyen of English journalism. In 1913, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, Lord Northcliffe presented him at his estate of Hall Barn, near Beaconsfield, with an address of congratulation from every branch of English journalism, the most striking passage of the address being that which in effect complimented Lord Burnham on having staved off so vigorously the challenge of his younger and most formidable rival. ‘You have never stood still’, ran the address, ‘in former ways, however successful, but by signal strokes of promptitude and courage have shown how journalism may re-adapt itself to the changing circumstances both of its own technical conditions, and of the world which it reflects.’ In journalistic circles the significance of the reference was well understood. Lord Northcliffe on another occasion spoke of Lord Burnham as ‘the best journalist of us all’.
Lord Burnham was one of the most widely known men of his time. He wielded power through his newspaper, but he was liked for himself. He was an original member of the Beefsteak Club, and a trustee of the Garrick Club. He loved good fellowship and genial gossip, and radiated liveliness. He also had great kindness of heart. He was a good talker and a good speaker—the utterance large, the style rotund. When he spoke for the newspaper press fund, or among journalists at press conferences—he was president of the Royal Institute of Journalists in 1892–1893, and of the Empire Press Union from 1909 till his death—he was always at his best. But he rarely appeared on public platforms and he never broke silence in the House of Lords.
A Londoner born and bred, Lord Burnham loved London life, and carried on the family tradition of being a good host and giving pleasant social parties. In 1881 he purchased Hall Barn, in the hundred of Burnham, the old home of Edmund Waller, the poet, and there the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII) visited him every year from 1892 until his death. There, too, during the last twelve years of his life Lord Burnham gave himself up to the enjoyment of country pursuits and fulfilled the duties of deputy lieutenant and justice of the peace for Buckinghamshire, of which he had been high sheriff in 1886. He died in London 9 January 1916.
Lord Burnham married in 1862 Harriette Georgiana (died 1897), only daughter of Benjamin Nottingham Webster [q.v.], the actor-manager. They had two sons and one daughter. The elder son, Harry Lawson Webster Levy-Lawson (born 1862), succeeded his father in the barony and was created a viscount in 1919.
There is a whole-length portrait of Lord Burnham, seated, in robes, with the star of the Victorian order, by Sir Hubert von Herkomer (Royal Academy Pictures, 1910).
[Daily Telegraph, 10 January 1916; private information; personal knowledge.]
LEWIS, WILLIAM THOMAS, first Baron Merthyr, of Senghenydd (1837–1914), engineer and coal-owner, the eldest son of Thomas William Lewis, engineer, of Abercanaid House, Merthyr Tydfil, by his wife, Mary Anne, daughter of John Watkin, was born at Merthyr Tydfil 5 August 1837. He received his early training under his father, and in 1855 became assistant engineer to William Southern Clark, mining agent for the Marquess of Bute's estate in South Wales—in Cardiff and its neighbourhood. He succeeded Clark in 1864 at an important period in the history of the coal industry and, as consulting engineer, was connected with various colliery and railway schemes in South Wales. In 1881 Lewis was given entire control of the Marquess of Bute's Welsh estates, and, by reducing the costs of working at the Cardiff docks (constructed by the Bute family), he made possible the expansion necessary for the rapidly increasing trade in steam coal. By 1887 he had constructed the Roath dock and by 1907 the Queen Alexandra dock. He also introduced new appliances, including the Lewis-Hunter crane, of which he was
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