The Lewis Cycle and Motor Works and its successor Vivian Lewis Limited were vibrant companies in the early days of the motor industry in South Australia, and a large amount of information exists in various forms. In this project we hope to bring together as much information as we can, so if we can keep enthusiasm high, there will be lots of entries on this page over the next year or two. Don't forget to hit "Reload" or "Refresh" on your browser if you have visited this site recently and your browser caches files. 29 July 2008 There is a bit of creative marketing going on in the Lewis Album photographs: many of the cars appear more than once. Here we take a closer look at the cars in the Lewis Cycle and Motor Works. Please be patient as I finish sorting the cars out - it might take a little while. Also updated the list of motorcycle agencies carried by Lewis which now includes (somewhat surprisingly) Ace, AJS, Triumph, Douglas and Levis. 27 July 2008 Added an extract from a c1916 Saxon motor car catalogue, stamped with the Vivian Lewis Ltd stamp. Lewis did very well with the Saxon agency during the first war. Also updated the People at Lewis pages: in total I have now gathered more than 150 names of people who worked with the various Lewis companies between 1892 and 1975. Names of those I've missed, or additional details of those already listed, are always welcome. 14 July 2008 Added a lovely period post card of the Lewis Motor House - just the thing for a quick note to your beloved. 7 July 2008 In the early days of South Australian motorcycling, a few riders devoted themselves to Lewis machines. Alfred Moyle, doyenne amongst clubmen, was one of them. 2 July 2008 I confess to being slightly distracted by the Mlle Serpolette's visit to Australia in 1898, which has elements of ripping yarn and mysterious intrigue in about equal proportions. While I try to answer the really important questions (Who was she? Should I believe anything I read about her past?) I have added an itinerary of her visit, and technical specifications of her Gladiator tricycle. June 2008 Just what was the link between Mlle Serpolette and the Lewis Cycle Works? Mlle Serpolette was either a famous racing cyclist, or a spruiker of bicycles and ladies cycling garments, depending on who you listened to. Here is a list of her claimed racing successes - if someone can verify perhaps the record can be set straight. Mlle Serpolette's tricycle was said to have been the first motor vehicle seen in South Australia when she visited in May 1898. And to where does a lady turn when the beast won't run? The Lewis Cycle Works of course. Updated the Vivian Lewis page to include a rather splendid photographic portrait, and added a draft of my biographical notes. Thanks to Brian Forth for the copy of this 1919 Lewis Motor House receipt, from H.K. Scott, a Lewis owner from Currency Creek. Also added an updated copy of the George Brooks Lewis Index: it now contains over 380 references to Lewis, mostly in the Adelaide press, over the period 1895 to 1975.. May 2008 Added a couple of articles: one on Rover cars seen in the album photographs c1905, and one on the incident-prone motor mail contract of 1908. Also added a 1936 letter of reference for Lewis employee Andrew Sinclair on a delightful 1936 Lewis Cycle Works Limited letterhead. Beginning in 1913, Lewis built a particularly fine racing motorcycle, with overhead valves. Added in a view of "the southern block", taken from the Adelaide GPO tower and showing the location of the three key Lewis premises at the southern end of town, c1910. April 2008 Updated the ephemera section, with a couple of lovely items dated 1900 courtesy of the Adelaide City Council Archives: a very hurried note from Vivian Lewis about a missed bicycle tender, and a superb letter requesting permission to use the Lewis car on the streets of Adelaide. No other car was running in Adelaide at the time. Also added a couple of Oldsmobile badges from the Waymouth Street era. The State Library of South Australia has been a mine of information, but arguably my most exciting find to date has been the block plans (1" = 40 ft maps) of early Adelaide. Using detail from one of these, we can see the layout of the Lewis buildings on Gawler Place and McHenry Street (the "northern block") as it was in the period 1895 - 1905. Also added the famous photograph of the first Lewis car. (Yes, I promise to add more information about the cars soon.) W.C. Torode was a master builder, a master motorcyclist and a master customer, covering 120,000 miles on four Lewis motorcycles from 1903. Added a photograph of Waymouth Street, and finally found a photo of the Unley branch, which seems to have been a rather modest outlet for bicycle and motorcycles. I've also edited most of the "locations" entires, but only changed minor details, and added some more photos to the Lewis motorcycles on the road section. Rewritten the section on Lewis-Precision engines, where the conclusion is that we probably shouldn't be calling them Precision at all! But they did come from the Precision Works... Also updated the Lewis-Stevens and the water-cooled Lewis motor sections. March 2008 Added yet more names to the people working at Lewis: the count is now over 100! Please help if you can. Updated and expanded the entries for the Mt Gambier, Broken Hill, Port Pirie and Clare branches, and added a page to cover miscellaneous locations around Adelaide. If you'd like to help solve a couple of mysteries, I'm still looking for addresses to go with the early workshop and foundry listed on the miscellaneous page. Added a brief history of Vivian Lewis Limited. The last couple of months have seen huge quantities of Lewis information pouring into my brain, but little dribbling out onto the web site. I will rectify this somewhat over the next couple of weeks as I add the new material. To start with, I have significantly expanded the information on people working at Lewis. If you can add to this, please contact me - the "people" side of the story is proving particularly difficult. January 2008 Added some information about the Port Pirie branch of the Lewis Cycle Works. Some serious hours have been spent at the State Library, followed by many more updating many of the entries relating to the Lewis premises in Adelaide. The story now begins at 68 Grenfell St in 1890, and more detail has been added particularly relating to the white garage (now identified as being on Molton Street) and the McHenry Street works. There are new entries for Waymouth Street in 1925 and the 1956 - 1975 Lewis Cycle Works on Gouger St. My view of the Vivian Lewis Limited presence on Franklin St has also changed. You will find a bit of Lewis corporate history now laced though these entries, but I intend to write story up separately, and more comprehensively, in the future. December 2007 Prior to 1910, Lewis sourced motors from The Stevens Motor Manufacturing Co. in Wolverhampton (forerunners to better-known A.J. Stevens) and had some interesting dealings with A.W. Wall, makers of the ROC motorcycle. Updated material about the Adelaide premises of Lewis: added detail of the extensions to the Gawler Place South, and modified various entries relating to the white garage now that we know more about its exact location. Added two early Lewis booklets to the ephemera section. The Lewis Cycles and Motors pamphlet shows cycles, de Dion cars and a Minerva-engined motorcycle (an illustration from the contemporary Chater Lea catalogue, crudely retouched to add "The Lewis" to the tank panel), and is probably late 1904. The Lewis Cycles booklet, with lots of Broken Hill content, is 1905 and uses lots of the earlier photos from the Lewis Album. November 2007 Updated the water-cooled motors page to include the De Dion-engined Lewis motorcycles exhibited in March 1905. Updated the entry for the Lewis Cycle and Motor Works, Broken Hill. I have included a picture of the 1926 Vivian Lewis Motors premises on Franklin Street, Adelaide, as it stands today. Get down there soon and have a look before it, like all the earlier Lewis buildings in Adelaide, disappears. Added information on the suburban Unley branch of Vivian Lewis Limited. October 2007 For the 1911 season, Lewis introduced a range of machines powered by Precision engines. Or were they? The marvellous photos in the Lewis album were taken for a 1906 Lewis booklet. Does anyone have a copy? The air-cooled Lewis models were not as exotic at their water-cooled brethren, but still worthy of note. Added some photos to the Lewis petrol engine page, and included full scans of the 1909 Lewis Motors catalogue. The catalogue is badly water damaged - does anyone have access to an better copy? September 2007 Some thoughts on the motorcycles seen in the early Lewis workshop, c1904. August 2007 Here's an overview of Lewis water cooled motors as used in their water-cooled motorcycles c1905 - 1920. I've updated the list of Lewis motorcycle models - as an overview it's getting near complete. Does anyone have a photo of a mid-1920s "Lewis Sport" with a 350 cc s.v. Precision motor and 3-speed box? Or the 1918 w.c. Lewis with the radiator on the front down tube? Also added a 1913 letterhead, and a group photo taken at the Belair National Park in September 1914. Four Lewis motorcycles on display - an article to follow. July 2007 Started to work on the people at Lewis page. Let me know if you can add to what is there! Also updated the Lewis stationary engine page. The Lewis motorcycles on the road section is growing. Down the track a little, I hope to expand this section of the site with larger copies of the photos and captions. Added the final five album photographs (for the moment at least - I am in search of an important photo that is missing from this copy of the album). The photos show bicycle manufacture at the Lewis Cycle Works c1905: brazing a bicycle frame, preparing for painting, the stove enamelling ovens, painted parts awaiting assembly, and another shot of the final assembly area. Added a Lewis bibliography, which includes George Brooks' marvellous Lewis Index. Also added complete scans of the 1912 Lewis Cycle catalogue, and updated the list of Lewis automobile agencies. Added five more photos from the album, mostly related to the bicycle activities of the Lewis Cycle Works: the office, bicycle parts counter, repairing punctures, bicycle repair shop and bicycle assembly. I've also uncovered some history of the Gawler Place South premises before and after the Vivian Lewis era. Added several items to the ephemera section, including 1917 and 1921 letterheads and a very detailed 1914 catalogue. Added three photos from the album: the pattern maker, preparing sand boxes, and working at the forge. Public release - please excuse any gremlins that are still around from the construction phase. Feel free to link directly to The Lewis Project page at the URL: http://users.senet.com.au/~mitchell/lewis 20 May 2007 The Lewis Project site goes on-line for the first time in a pre-release form. There are no external links to the site yet. Initially the aim is to get the structure for the site in place, so expect the structure to change and new content to appear a little haphazardly over the next couple of weeks while we get organised. |
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