Edward Lee

Benefactor
Edward and Annie Lee were benefactors to many good causes
and charities and both were life governors of The Royal
Hospital for Incurables in Donnybrook where their son Robert
Ernest was Resident Medical Officer, 1912-13. The business had subscribed
three guineas a year to the hospital from 1900, eventually increasing the
subscription to five guineas. This annual donation would continue long
after Edward and Annie’s deaths. Donations were also made to Baggot
Street and Jervis Street Hospitals and many other institutions and causes.
Edward Lee was a member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and the
Dublin Mercantile Association. He had extensive business interests and
was a Director of Dublin Distillers and the Mining Company of Ireland. In
1910 he built houses at the back of Lee’s shop in Dún Laoghaire. Named
after the birthplace of ‘one of the best women in the world - his wife’,
Dungar Terrace was a lovely little street with beautifully designed terraced
houses, all rented out for a modest sum. The cost of this development
was £7,000, a very large sum at the time. But this all accorded with
Edward’s social principles. ‘They had tenants in Dungar Terrace from
Dublin, Rathmines and Rathgar. He thought the houses were wanted in
Kingstown. They expended a great deal of money in building, but they
only asked for a small return on their capital’. 20
In an article entitled ‘Leading Kingstown Traders’, published in The
Freeman’s Journal on the 17 th May 1913, Edward Lee was again held up
as a caring and progressive employer. ‘One establishment in particular
stands out boldly, a commercial watchtower in itself, jealously guarding,
as it were, its companions in trade; its house-flag flying and proclaiming
to all and sundry that these are the premises of Edward Lee and Co. Ltd.
What an asset such progressive firms are to a township like Kingstown
may be judged from the fact that within a few years Messrs. Lee have
erected in brick and mortar alone property of the estimated value of
£26,000, truly a marvellous march of commercial progress for one firm
alone. This may be in one sense, however, understood when we consider
the unfailing devotion to work and loyalty of the staff to an employer, who
20 Irish Independent. 14/6/1910
36
Edward Lee