Edward Lee

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The four brothers attended Trinity College. Robert Ernest graduated as a medical doctor and Joe also attended the King’s Inns studying to be a barrister. Ted trained as an accountant and would become the firm’s secretary. Tennyson, the youngest, gained an M.A. and would also eventually enter the family business. The family now attended St Brigid’s Church of Ireland in Stillorgan. Although all the family, except Annie, were Methodists, there was a gradual transfer to the Church of Ireland. In 1907, Edward Lee was involved in the Irish International Exhibition as a member of the Executive Council of Exhibits and Space Committee. The successful businessman William Martin Murphy was also involved as a vice-president. Edward and Annie were presented to their Majesties Edward VII and Queen Alexandra when they visited the exhibition. Never forgetting his roots, Edward Lee brought 300 family, friends and neighbours, at his own expense, from Tyrrellspass up to Dublin to visit the exhibition as his guests. They were all treated to lunch and a tour of the exhibition before returning home by train. Interestingly, a few years earlier, in March 1904, Edward Lee as a member of the Dublin Mercantile Association had proposed a motion to consider the holding of an International Exhibition in Dublin in 1906. 15 It is most likely that he had decided to travel to America in 1904, with this idea in mind, to see for himself how this could be achieved. America And Canada 1904 Edward Lee was a proud and patriotic Irishman. He loved his country and would promote Ireland and its people at every opportunity. He was a firm believer in his fellow Irishmen and women. ‘Ireland is a country endowed with so much natural beauty, fertile resources and above all with such a talented and splendid people’. 16 His love for his country and his concern for his fellow countrymen, especially in what he saw as the scourge of emigration, is well described in his Memoranda of a Hurried Visit to 15 Irish Times. 11/4/1904 16 Irish Times. 24/12/1904 28 Edward Lee
America and Canada 17 which he published privately on his return from the month long visit in May and June 1904, accompanied by his good friend Robert Reid Thomson. It was dedicated to his friend, ‘With very sincere regard to my fellow-traveller and friend, tried and true, R. Reid Thomson, Esq’. This publication is reproduced in full in the Appendix. Travelling from Queenstown in Cork on the train, he described the landscape and his sadness for the people he saw through the carriage window. He was also wistful about his own boyhood memories, ‘The pasture lands of Kildare and the bogs of King’s County are replaced by the Queen’s County hills to the left. Memories of my boyhood days crowd in upon me, as a holiday of some few days I spent there in years gone by still marks time on my memory. Perhaps no land can produce greater diversity of creed and character than Ireland. Pathetic was the scene at Portarlington, where the observant Irishman and others may have seen the life-blood of the nation slowly bleeding the country white in the tide of emigration, which has not been stemmed for even one decade, since its first flow nearly fifty years ago’. ‘Ireland is a country endowed with so much natural beauty, fertile resources and above all, with such a talented and splendid people.’ Although the two men were travelling in luxury to New York on the White Star Liner RMS Oceanic, he was not immune to the plight of the steerage passengers, noting sadly, ‘Alas, for human hopes! One of our fellow-travellers in the steerage died this evening quite suddenly. The touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin was immediately felt, as evidenced by the expression of sympathy heard on all sides. The poor fellow who was travelling all alone will be committed to the deep at 8.30 tomorrow evening over 1000 miles from his no doubt dearly loved country, for he was an Irishman’. However his sense of equality was shaken the next day when he was informed that at the funeral service, ‘State-room passengers were not allowed to be present’. 17 Memoranda of a Hurried Visit to America and Canada by Edward Lee Model Employer and Man of Moral Courage 29
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 and 24: at Dargan Street in Little Bray and
Page 25 and 26: The Grange By the early 1900s, the
Page 27: Silver Wedding Illuminated scroll 1
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
Page 65 and 66: Model Employer and Man of Moral Cou
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Model Employer and Man of Moral Cou
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Edward Lee

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