Basil Lewis

Basil Lewis was born in Clarendon, Jamaica in 1927. In 1954, aged twenty-five, Basil left Jamaica for Britain, settling in Hornsey in North London. He started working as a telephone engineer for Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (later Nortel), before going on to set up his own record shop and then a travel agency Sunshine Travel, which arranged holidays to the Caribbean.

He joined the Union Church, close to where he lived on Drylands Road in Hornsey. Alongside around a dozen church members he helped set up a savings-and-loans club for the local community, designed to help those who could not get a bank loan to borrow money to start businesses or buy a home. Caribbean migrants at the time often found that the interest rates offered and deposits required by banks were unaffordable.[6] On 7 April 1964 the club was formally established as the Hornsey Cooperative Credit Union. Less than a year later it had more than one hundred members.[7]

Basil Lewis was first elected in 1968 as a Conservative councillor for Stroud Green. He served the ward for ten years. Following boundary changes in 1978,[8] he stood in the newly expanded Crouch End ward, serving until 1982.

Clipping from the Hornsey Journal, 17 May 1968 (from Bruce Castle Museum collection)

On his election in 1968, Councillor Basil Lewis told local newspaper The Hornsey Journal “I am convinced that the electors in Stroud Green have proved a great example, which may go down in history. Your decision to elect me as one of your ward representatives I accept as a vote of confidence. I pledge myself to serve you to the best of my ability and I will always be ready to assist you and befriend you."[9][10]

As a councillor, he helped form Haringey's Community Relations Council, Race Equalities Committee and the Ferne Park Housing Association.[6]