On 23rd March 2020, Pate’s Archives received an email from Eric Miller asking for the address of Dr Peter Lewis when he attended Cheltenham Grammar School.  He was writing an article for the Leckhampton Local History Society about Leckhampton House in Cambridge.  Currently the postgraduate centre of Corpus Christi College, the house was nearly renamed St Mary’s Court but the move was blocked by Dr Lewis.  I replied to Eric that Peter Lewis was my uncle and I put him in touch with Peter’s son, Mark. Between us we provided some relevant family history and photographs to Eric and a slightly amended version of his article follows.
Maggie Cowie, Volunteer Archivist

DR PETER LEWIS AND LECKHAMPTON HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE 
Eric Miller, revised April 2020.
Leckhampton House in Cambridge, which is now the postgraduate centre at Corpus Christi College, was built for Frederic Myers.  As a day boy at Cheltenham College, Myers had lived in Leckhampton at Brandon House, situated on the corner of Painswick Road and Grafton Road.  In due course he became a distinguished classical scholar and was appointed as a don at Cambridge, where he named his home after Leckhampton.

Information supplied by the Archivist at Corpus Christi explained that when the building was acquired by the College in 1962 to be the nucleus of its postgraduate centre, it was the wish of its Master to rename it ‘St Mary’s Court’. However, one of the fellows, Dr Peter Lewis, had argued vigorously for the original name of Leckhampton to be retained.  It appeared that he had a strong personal reason for doing so, which was that both he and his wife had been born in Leckhampton. 

Peter Lewis was born in May 1924 and was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School, winning a scholarship to read Chemistry at Exeter College, Oxford.  He had a distinguished academic career as a neurobiologist, beginning when he was appointed to the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory in 1948.  From 1960 to 1984 he was Director of Medical Studies at Corpus Christi.  After his death in 2007, in recognition of the support and contribution that Peter and his wife Joyce had made to medical life at the college, it was decided to name a new medical society in his honour.       

Peter’s parents were Raymond Wiltshire Lewis and Florence Eveline, née Baldwin. Their Leckhampton connections are evident from the outset although at the time of their marriage in 1920 Raymond Lewis had actually been living at ‘Beverston’, St James’s Square. Florence’s address was 1, Edward Street, off Shurdington Road, and her marriage banns were read in St Philip and St James’ church, Grafton Road. Her parents’ address at that time was 'Marsden', Albany Road, off St Stephen’s Road, – also (just) within the parish of Leckhampton. The couple had joined the parents at that house the following year but by 1923 it appears that all had moved to 70, Upper Bath Road, on the corner of St Philip’s Street, near the northern boundary of the parish. It will have been at that house that Peter Lewis was born in 1924. 

By 1927 they had all moved to 14, Sandford Terrace, Keynsham Road. Previously, the Lewis family home had been next door at No 13; this is according to the 1911 census, when 15-year-old Raymond was recorded as an apprentice ironmonger. He later became area sales manager and a director of Sharpe & Fisher (originally ironmongers and later builders merchants). Like the house in St James’s Square, No. 14 was named 'Beverston', after the village of Beverston near Tetbury where Raymond’s father had been born. 

Joyce Pritchard was born in 1926 and had lived in Fairfield Avenue, at 8 Mapledene Terrace, (now no 20) and was a pupil at Naunton Park School.

While the information originally provided by Corpus Christi was bound to be accurate (and had probably been supplied by Peter Lewis himself), it is satisfying to have been able to corroborate it with precise evidence. Moreover, it is a source of pride that such a distinguished person had Leckhampton roots.