part inventor. When the Bute Dock Company was formed in 1887, he became managing director, and some years later helped to secure direct access to the South Wales coal-field by opening up the Cardiff Railway. Undoubtedly, the growth of Cardiff and the prosperity of the coal-field are bound up with Lewis's career.
Lewis's work for the Bute estates, however, represents but one phase of his activities. His marriage in 1864 to Anne (died 1902), daughter of William Rees, colliery-owner, of Lletyshenkin, Aberdare, brought him into close contact with the steam-coal trade, of which his wife's family were pioneers. His main colliery interests ultimately lay in the lower Rhondda valley and in the Senghenydd district. He possessed a remarkable knowledge of the South Wales coal-field and of coal-working in general, and was appointed to serve on the royal commissions on the action of coal dust in mines, on mining royalties, on coal supplies, and on accidents in mines (1878–1886). For his valuable services on the last-named commission he was knighted in 1885. From coal Lewis was drawn into iron-working, and he helped to revive the industry by applying the new Bessemer process for the production of steel. In 1908 he was elected president of the Iron and Steel Institute.
Probably some of Lewis's greatest work was done in the cause of industrial peace. Little effort had been made to organize the coal industry until after the strike of 1871, when he succeeded in persuading coal-owners and iron-masters of South Wales to form the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal-Owners' Association. During the great strike of 1873 he counselled arbitration and urged the adoption of a sliding scale as the basis of the new wage agreement. The acceptance of this principle in 1875 brought peace and stability to the industry for many years; and, as chairman for eighteen years of the sliding-scale committee, Lewis was largely responsible for the efficient working of the scheme. The principle led to a distinct improvement in the relations between capital and labour, and later came to be adopted in other coal-fields.
Lewis had won for himself a high reputation as an industrial expert and as a conciliator. In 1881 he was president of the Mining Association of Great Britain, and he served on the royal commissions on labour (1891–1894), on trades' disputes (1903–1906), and on shipping combinations (1906–1907). He was successful in effecting a settlement of the Taff Vale Railway strike in 1900, and his proposal for the institution of permanent boards of arbitration became the basis of settlement of the general railway strike of 1907.
Lewis, who had been created a baronet in 1896 and had received the K.C.V.O. in 1907, was raised to the peerage in 1911 as Baron Merthyr, of Senghenydd, Glamorganshire. In 1912 he received the G.C.V.O. He took a keen interest in education and in the social welfare of the coal-field, and was a generous supporter of hospitals and other institutions. He had played a prominent part in the founding, in 1881, of the Monmouthshire and South Wales permanent provident fund for the relief of colliery workers in case of sickness or accident—a scheme which anticipated by many years some of the advantages of old age pensions, compensation for accident, and insurance against sickness or unemployment.
Lord Merthyr died at Newbury 27 August 1914. He had two sons and six daughters, and he was succeeded as second baron by his elder son, Herbert Clark Lewis (born 1866).
[Shipping World, July 1907, September 1908; The Syren and Shipping, January 1900, November 1905, July 1907; Maritime Review, March 1905, July 1907, October 1909; The Sphere, July 1905; The Queen, March 1905, November 1906, July 1907; South Wales Daily News, November 1906, June 1911, August 1914; Western Mail, June–July 1907, November 1912, August 1914; Merthyr Times, November 1885, June 1887; Merthyr Express, February 1907, June 1911; Aberdare Weekly Post, March 1905, July 1907, August 1914; private information.]
LIBERTY, Sir ARTHUR LASENBY (1843–1917), fabric manufacturer, the eldest son of Arthur Liberty, lace manufacturer, of Nottingham and of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, by his wife, Rebecca Lasenby, was born at Chesham 13 August 1843. He was educated at University School, Nottingham. In 1862, at the age of nineteen, he was appointed manager of Farmer and Rogers's Oriental warehouse in Regent Street, London, the first depôt in England for the exclusive sale of goods from the Far East. Liberty held this position until 1874, when the warehouse was closed, and during these twelve years came into close contact with artists interested in Oriental and other crafts, who used to meet there. Among them were Leighton, Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Whistler, and William Morris. In 1875 Liberty went into business on his own account, with three employees, at 218
334
