Mariana Mary Lewis

Some of the following information is disputed.

Mary (Goldsmid) Lewis (1779-1842) was listed as a mistress of George IV in the year 1805. She had a number of illegitimate children from this affair with the King.

She was a daughter of the Jewish Goldsmid family. Her first husband was Menachem Mona (Nathan). She married him in a Jewish ceremony when she was 13, in 1792. She divorced him in 1800 when she was 21.

She became the mistress of George IV under the name Mrs. Lewis when he was Prince of Wales. She had a number of children with him who were given the surname Lewis.

In 1810 she married William Lewis of the Black Lion Brewery in Brighton after her intimate relationship with George ended. She and George continued to be good friends. She was one of the chief ladies of Charlotte, Princess of Wales, from childhood until Charlotte's death in 1817. Charlotte is said to have died in Mary's arms.

William Lewis' sister, Mrs. Mary (Lewis) Woodhouse, of Norley Hall, Cheshire, reared two of Mary's sons at Norley Hall, Samuel Lewis and Joseph Lewis. Mary's sons James Lewis and George Lewis were reared by William Lewis's cousin, Edward Henry Lewis, in London. Mary's son James Lewis and grandson James Lewis were both in the brewery / inn industry, as were George IV's sons by Maria Fitzherbert, William Payne and Randolph Payne

Historians question the paternity of Mary's children. Both the Nathan and the Lewis family had a family story of being descended from a Polish king and his Jewish mistress (or secret wife).

Sources

• Athol Bloomer, Simeon Levi West: An Anglican Jew (Nov. 2, 2008)

An article was recently published citing 'the wife' of Menahem called Manish Polak in Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal Volume XX part 1. The skeleton in Isaac Nathans cupboard.

Anthony J. Camp, 'Royal Mistresses and Bastards: Fact and Fiction 1714-1936
446 pages, 295 X 210 mm (A4), paperback. ISBN 978-0-9503308-2-2. Published by the author, 2007. http://anthonyjcamp.com/page7.htm