Evelyn LEWIS (née WARREN) [1901-1954]

Yes indeed. How funny that you should find my Aunt Vlin in the course of searching for Brownies. Unfortunately I never met her, as my family was living in Ceylon while she was alive. She died in 1954. She and my much younger father only lived under the same roof until he was about 6 years old, as she went to school in England at the start of the 1st World War and he was sent to Canada. She came back to Hong Kong after finishing school in 1919 just as he started school in England. They probably met when my grandfather delivered him there, picking her up at the same time. His (perhaps unwise) investment in racehorses dates from her arrival. Horses were her main passion and no expense was spared. The departure of her naval officer fiancé  in 1922 was the reason she also left, and I don't think Charles Warren managed too well living on his own. He died aged 51 in 1923. Evelyn's elder son, Brian Lewis, spent many years compiling our Warren family history from the available pre-internet sources and the contents of a  trunk. He also travelled to Canada to meet Leslie Warren's children, who emigrated with their mother after the war. Sadly, Brian died suddenly before we could all meet each other and pool our conflicting information at leisure. Evelyn leaves three grandsons, one of whom has the trunk!

Many thanks for picking up this reference.

Jill

For the record, Evelyn Warren was born on 9 November 1901 and died on 27 April 1954. She was baptised at St Joseph's Church, Hong Kong, on 12 January 1902.

i wonder if Evelyn warren was in any way connected to the helena may institute, and thus the guiding movement. since she was baptised at st joseph's which is only a few minutes walk to the helena may.  was she also in some social clubs where Lady May was involved or chaired in those years?

Thank you, wann, for this suggestion about my aunt, Evelyn Warren. Although I get the impression that she threw herself into several activities in Hong Kong, of which guiding and horse racing were two, we have no other record or family memory of Evelyn's Hong Kong involvements. I'm currently trying to find out where Evelyn went to school. Although she was baptised at St Joseph's, the family had moved to Kowloon by the time she was of an age to go to school. My father, born in 1909, was baptised at the Rosary Church in Kowloon. St Mary's Canossian College in Kowloon has just told me that they have no record of Evelyn. My father went to the French Convent in about 1916-17, but by that time the Warrens were living in Broadwood Road. Evelyn was sent to school in England in 1915. Although she might have been friendly with the Mays' daughters until she left aged 14, she didn't return to Hong Kong till the summer of 1919 when the Mays left. My grandfather, Charles Warren, was taken on as an Overseer in the Sanitary Department when he arrived in Hong Kong post-Plague in 1895 and would have worked alongside Henry May then. In his book Hong Kong, GK Sayer writes 'Henry May, the new Captain Superintendent of Police, was ubiquitous and indefatigable in anti-plague measures – burying, demolishing, disinfecting, burning, evacuating  - and breathing courage into his men." In the early years of his governorship Henry May was helpful to my grandfather in allowing the purchase of Crown land for development. Evelyn would have just missed the Mays when she came back to Hong Kong, but it would be interesting to know if she was at school with the Mays' daughters until 1915.