Pius Lewenz

In the Hamburg births, Jan 1835, he is recorded as Pincus, son of Isaias Levy from Schwerin and Hetty Lazarus from Hamburg. Parents married on 20 March 1832 in Hamburg. Hamburg marriages 1864#1392, groom called Pincus Lehwenz.

Pius Lewenz, though he had 4 children, has no living descendants.

His son John Leo did not marry. His son Pincus died a few days old. His son Walter had three daughters but daughter Hilda died age 8, daughter Edith had two bachelor sons, and daughter Letty was a spinster. His daughter Frida had a married son Humphtrey David Berman who was childless.

PIUS LEWENZ (1834 - 1886) and LOUISE FEILMANN (1840 – 1914)

Pius Lewenz was born in Hamburg on 1 January 1835 where the birth records give his name as Pincus Levy, the son of Isaias Levy and Hetty Lazarus. As a young man he moved to Nottingham because of the textile trade and family connections. In 1849, the merchant Philipp Simon of Hamburg had been importing and re-exporting goods from Nottingham in such quantities that he sent his most trusted employee, a nephew called Jacob Weinberg, to Nottingham to set up an office. In 1856, Pius joined Jacob Weinberg as a partner in the business of Simon May & Co Ltd and more details about the history of this company can be found in the booklet 'The House of Simon'. Philipp Simon’s daughter Ida eventually married Pius' brother Iwan Lewenz.

In 1862, the Nottingham Directory listed Pius as living in a house called Holburn Villas. According to the 1861 census he was a lace warehouse man and in the 1881 census he was a yarn merchant. Pius was naturalized on 17 November 1864. He had a beard and moustache and wore a monocle.

Pius met Louise Feilmann in England. They were married in Hamburg in 1864 with the groom named as Pincus Lehwenz according to the note made next to his birth registration. They had four children: John Leo born on 28 August 1867, Pincus born on 3 December 1869 who died the same month, Walter born on 31 January 1872, and Frida Pauline born in early 1880. Letty Lewenz, their grand-daughter, thought that a second baby boy had died.

When John Leo and Pincus were born the family was living at 31 Gill Street, Sherwood in Nottingham. By the 1871 census, Pius, Louisa, their son John Leo, plus a nurse and a cook were living at Western Terrace, in Standard Hill, Nottingham. The Nottingham Post Office Directory shows that they were still at his address, 2 Western Terrace Park, in 1877. By 1881 the family had moved to 1 Pelham Crescent in Standard Hill, Nottingham, in an area known as The Park which was a prestigious part of the town. They had a nurse, a housemaid, an under-housemaid and a cook living in. They were well connected and Louise introduced Mrs Boot to society, as Boots the chemist was only just starting up in business at that time.

Pius' mother died in Altona in the outer suburbs of Hamburg in 1882 and there is a story that Pius died on a visit to see her. However, as announced in The Times, he died prematurely, aged fifty one, whilst visiting Glockenglesserwall in the centre Hamburg on 20 September 1886. He was buried in the Jewish Friedhof Ohlsdorfer Cemetery in Hamburg. Ohlsdorf Cemetery in the Ohlsdorf quarter of the city of Hamburg, is the biggest rural cemetery in the world and the second-largest cemetery in the world

In his will Pius left £34,000 and bequeathed money for the upkeep of Jewish cemeteries. He made provision for his sister Emma Luria, for Emma’s children and for Louisa’s sister Johanna Feilmann, with the life interest in the remainder of his estate going to his wife and thereafter distributed between his children.

see https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2021/02/there-are-fairies-at-... for family photos