704 John Lewis

Constituency : Devonport  1868-74

John  held  on  to  Lord  Elliott's  by-election  gain  of  1866.

John  was  born  in  St  Petersburg  to  a  Russia  merchant. He  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Cambridge  and  became  a  barrister. He  had  a  second  home  in  France  and  wrote  a  number  of  travel  books  in  both  English  and  French. Sketches  of  Cantabs  sold  well  and  was  rated  by  Dickens. He  was  the  son-in-law  of  Sir  Jervoise Clark-Jervoise  the  MP  for  South  Hampshire.

John  was  defeated  in  1874  ( and  at  Oxford in the  by-election  when  Edward  Cardwell  was  raised  to  the  peerage )  and  an  unsuccessful  candidate  in  1880.

He  died  in  1884  aged  56.