Essington Lewis
Australian businessman
Essington Lewis (13 January 1881 – 2 October 1961) was an Australian industrialist. He was the Director-General of the Department of Munitions and Director-General of the Department of Aircraft Production during World War II.
Biography
Early life
Essington Lewis was born in Burra, South Australia on 13 January 1881. His father was the pastoralist and politician John Lewis (1844–1923), founder of Bagot, Shakes & Lewis. He was named after Port Essington, where his father owned a cattle property. He was educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide and the South Australian School of Mines.
Career
After joining BHP in 1904, he rose through the company ranks to become managing director in 1926 and chairman in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1961. For the whole of his period as managing director, he had a close working relationship and personal friendship with the chairman of directors, Harold Gordon Darling (1885–1950).
During his travels to Germany and Japan in the 1930s, he realised the threat of these countries to Australia. Accordingly, with Darling, he helped establish the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and many munitions facilities meaning Australia was better prepared for industrialisation when the war started in 1939. During World War II, he also served as Director-General of the Department of Munitions and Director-General of the Department of Aircraft Production.
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This entry incorporates text from “Essington Lewis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.