Edward Lee

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deprived Bray of Edward Lee’s services on the Council and Mr. Joseph W. Reigh J.P. said, ‘some gentlemen who were not able to face Mr. Lee in the open gave him a stab in the back’. Edward Lee calmly replied that, ‘It had been done by a gentleman who was perfectly entitled to do it and I had no reason to complain’. 13 However, it is most likely that Edward felt betrayed and sad upon his retirement as Chairman in December of that year. He would never again seek to be elected to any public office. It was not surprising. But it was arguably a great loss to the community that he did not get involved in local politics in Kingstown. Probably he had had enough of council politics. If he could not deliver for his fellow citizens, what was the point? ‘The bonus, or rather profit sharing system is my highest ideal of what a business ought to be.’ In 1911, Edward Lee was appointed to the Commission of the Peace for the County of Wicklow, attending the Bray Bench. While in Bray he had donated £100 towards the equipping of the library in 1910 and had paid for renovations to the Methodist Church. He also donated a house on Florence Road for the formation of a club for people in trade. The Suburban Club as it is known, is still in existence in the same house today. Edward Lee was elected the first president. He was a man who held strong opinions on many subjects, especially on business, local and social issues. He was not afraid to take a stand on anything he felt was unfair. For example, some years earlier, the threatened closure of Kynochs Explosives Factory in Arklow in 1907 had been seen as an attempt by English rivals to transfer the business to England. At the Bray UDC meeting of June 4 th 1907 there was much heated discussion on this topic. Edward Lee as a man of fair play and an Irishman was indignant on the matter, ‘It would be nothing short of a public disgrace if this attempt to ruin Arklow were persisted in. This was an occasion on which Irishmen of all classes should join and say to English intriguers, hands off this industry’. 14 13 Freeman’s Journal. 7/10/1908 14 Irish Times. 5/6/1907 24 Edward Lee
The Grange By the early 1900s, the Lee family had moved from Bray into an imposing mansion on the Stillorgan Road in Co. Dublin. The Grange was a large and beautiful house with extensive grounds, all enclosed behind a high wall. Parts of the wall and some traces of the estate cottages still exist today. They can be seen from the main Stillorgan Road at the junction for Brewery Road. The family would live here until 1914. The years at The Grange would turn out to be the happiest the family would spend together. It must have been a magical place for the young boys. Photographs of the time show a family with all the attendant privileges of a prosperous middle class. The extensive grounds contained a small boating lake, dairy, croquet lawn and a tennis court. A typical Edwardian scene, with tennis matches and afternoon tea in the garden listening to Sir Edward Elgar and Count John McCormack on the new cylinder gramophone. Although they employed a gardener, Edward and Annie Lee were themselves keen gardeners and won prizes at local garden shows for their produce. The staff included a butlerchauffeur, two housemaids, a cook and, for a short time, a nanny for Patrick, the youngest son, who would sadly die within months of his birth in 1906. There was also a companion for Annie Lee. Annie Cosgrave, a Roman Catholic and a Wexford woman, had originally worked for the Darley Family. The Darleys had lived in The Grange until 1901 and it would seem that Annie Cosgrave had stayed on to work for the Lees. Annie Cosgrave would spend the rest of her life as a respected member of the Lee household. The two eldest boys, Edward ‘Ted’ Lee and Robert ‘Ernest’ Lee, attended Wesley College in Dublin and the younger two, Joseph Bagnall Lee and Alfred ‘Tennyson’ Lee, were boarders at Epworth Methodist College in Rhyl, North Wales. Edward and Annie loved to entertain at The Grange. There was a grand ballroom where dancing and parties took place. Sometimes the Lee boys would help and act as waiters. In 1903, Edward and Annie’s silver wedding anniversary was celebrated there with a wonderful party for family, friends and Lee’s employees. The highlight was the presentation of a beautiful framed illuminated address from all the staff of Edward Lee & Co. Model Employer and Man of Moral Courage 25
Page 1 and 2: Edward Lee Model Employer and Man o
Page 7 and 8: Contents Foreword by Pádraig Yeate
Page 9 and 10: accommodation for his own employees
Page 11 and 12: are gradually piecing the family st
Page 13 and 14: ook by far on the 1913 Dublin Locko
Page 15 and 16: Jane, who would become Countess of
Page 17 and 18: Tyrrellspass Green 1900s. Photo was
Page 19 and 20: Edward Lee and Co Ltd Dún Laoghair
Page 21 and 22: Social Conscience Edward Lee was an
Page 23: at Dargan Street in Little Bray and
Page 27 and 28: Silver Wedding Illuminated scroll 1
Page 29 and 30: America and Canada 17 which he publ
Page 31 and 32: paragraph in the next day’s issue
Page 33 and 34: his nephew Robert H. Gilbert 19 to
Page 35 and 36: Cluster of skyscrapers, New York. C
Page 37 and 38: certainly, as such, has no rival in
Page 39 and 40: dismissed. The employers held out,
Page 41 and 42: under the chairmanship of Tom Kettl
Page 43 and 44: influence those of the metropolis
Page 45 and 46: the controversy. Ironically perhaps
Page 47 and 48: ‘Bellevue’, Cross Avenue, Black
Page 49 and 50: laid his broken body in its last re
Page 51 and 52: Unknown newspaper cutting from 1915
Page 53 and 54: kind to them, Edward and Annie must
Page 55 and 56: sister. It is possible that they me
Page 57 and 58: profit for the capitalists, as some
Page 59 and 60: that any firm advertising in certai
Page 61 and 62: Annie Lee and Tennyson Lee 1930s. E
Page 63 and 64: Deansgrange Cemetery, alongside his
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Model Employer and Man of Moral Cou
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Edward Lee

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