At the turn of the 20th Century Belfast was a successful city of industry. Ship building, rope works, linen mills, tobacco and tea factories spanned the city, with Harland and Wolfe claiming to be the greatest shipyard in the world and one of the leading ports in Europe. It was in this thriving city that Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29th 1898 in a semi-detatched villa on Dundela Avenue.
C S Lewis was born into a middle class family who enjoyed the spoils of Belfast’s success. They lived in a densely populated area of east Belfast, a far cry from the over crowded terraces that surrounded the factories. They had financial security, enjoyed summer holidays to the seaside and had servants.
Lewis’s father, Albert Lewis was the first of his family to enter into an educated profession as a solicitor, establishing his own practice on Royal Avenue, in the city centre. He was an avid reader who attended the Belmont Literary Society as a young man of 18. He wanted to move up amongst the social ranks of the city, as in Edwardian Belfast class distinctions existed.
He began to pursue Florence Hamilton, whose family were well distinguished in Belfast. She had attended ‘Ladies Classes,’ in Methodist College and was one of the first women to graduate from Queens University. Although her family considered Albert to be only just a gentleman and to be below her station, the two fell in love and soon married. Their first home was the little semi-detached villa that they rented off their brother in law. This was the place where C S Lewis was born.
The villas were later demolished in the 50’s for social housing, but the flats that stand there today still bare a blue plaque honouring C S Lewis’s birthplace.
C S Lewis's Ireland 