Edward Lee

Preface
Except for a few family stories, some correct and some which proved
to be inaccurate or simply untrue, my brother Edward and I knew very
little about our great-grandfather Edward Lee and his life and times. The
story was simply never mentioned in the family. I really believe that our
own father, Edward knew practically nothing about his grandfather.
Edward Lee’s other grandsons, John and David, also seemed to know
little. Perhaps at the time it was all too painful, especially for the two
surviving sons, Edward (Ted) and Tennyson, to talk about the old family
because that would inevitably mean talking about their two brothers, Joe
and Robert Ernest, both of whom had been killed in the Great War. Their
loss was an enormous tragedy for the family and something from which
they never really recovered.
Edward and Annie Lee had created a successful drapery business out of
nothing but hard work and a will to succeed. The family and the business
shone brightly for an amazing but brief time, a time that encompassed
enormous upheavals in society both at home and on the world stage.
During all that period, Edward Lee had a vision of his ideal of what both
society and business should be. Although it was perhaps both quixotic
and utopian, it was a wonderful ideal. However, it was Edward’s family
that took centre stage throughout his life When the two boys died in the
Great War, something in the old couple died too. You can see it in the later
photographs of Edward and Annie, the light in their eyes slowly dimming.
After their deaths in 1927 and 1938 respectively, the business carried on
through the decades up to its eventual demise in the late 1970s when the
light flickered one last time and finally died too.
My older brother Edward took on a huge amount of the research and is
tenacious in his endeavours to find out more. I, on the other hand, have
a particular interest in the Great War and the story of the two ‘lost boys’,
Joe and Robert Ernest. Their loss was a devastating blow for Edward
and Annie and, I believe, fundamental to an understanding of their
subsequent lives. Now, with the benefit of modern research methods, we
10
Edward Lee