B. A. LEWIS COLLECTION

Personal papers, photographs

<p>For a short article about B. A. Lewis, see Chester Observer, 19 August 1983.</p>

Prior notice required for access

The records listed below were donated to the City Record Office by B. A. Lewis between 1981 and 1983, the year of his death.

Bertram Arthur Lewis was born in 1890, and began his teaching career in Liverpool as an uncertified teacher in 1909-10. He spent the following two years at Liverpool University Elementary Training Department, where he gained a Board of Education Certificate. In 1913, he took a First Class B.Sc. degree in Chemistry and Physics. During the First World War, he served as a Sergeant in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

B. A. Lewis received his permanent teaching certificate in 1919, after which he taught briefly in Birkenhead. In 1919, he was appointed a Chemistry Master at the City and County School for Boys, which became the City Grammar School for Boys in 1938. He was Senior Chemistry Master at the school until his retirement in 1955. Between 1937 and 1940, he also acted as Principal of Chester Technical Institute, Senior Department, which provided evening classes.

He became an Associate of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain in 1919, and in 1930, was awarded a Liverpool University M. A. degree for which he submitted a thesis on didactic methods in chemistry (see CR 370/4).

During his teaching career, B. A. Lewis led many school trips and expeditions. These included an annual Easter Camp at Old Colwyn, Denbighshire and trips to Scotland, the Lake District, Germany, Norway and Switzerland.

Apart from his teaching work, B. A. Lewis worked as a chemist for the Ministry of Fuel and Power from 1941 to 1955 and for twenty years after his retirement, he worked in the laboratories of the Chester Public Analyst.