Lancelot Ashley LEWIS

STATISTICS Guernsey Number: Career: 1903 to 1907, 1909 to 1912 NFC Games: 82 NFC Goals: 13 Debut: v Sturt (Unley) 6th June 1903 Finale: v Sturt (Norwood) 17th August 1912 Premierships: 1907 NFC Life Member Best & Fairest: 1910 South Australian Games: 7

Lancelot Ashley Lewis’  early career largely mirrored that of his elder brother and Norwood team-mate Essington and he went on to even greater football honours.

Like Essington, Lance was born at Burra, worked on family properties and was a skilled horseman. At the age of nine he made a solitary trip on horseback from Burra to Adelaide and at the age of 12, rode alone to Warrnambool and back.

Lance was a gifted sportsman at St Peter’s College, excelling at football, cricket and  athletics. He later rowed for Adelaide and was fond of horse racing, but football was his chief sporting love and he travelled each week from Burra to play with Norwood.

Lance was a strong, 182cm follower-half-forward with accurate disposal. Both brothers were influential in Norwood’s 1907 grand final win over Port Adelaide and the subsequent defeat of Carlton for the Championship of Australia.

A high mark by Lance in the 1907 grand final is Norwood’s first action shot and features on a silver shield given by the NFC in 1908 for competition in the NSW  Football League and now on display at Moore Park Sydney, as the Norwood Shield.

After horseback trips to Darwin and back through the outback cattle country in 1907 and 1908, Lance played in South Australia’s winning team in the 1911 carnival in Adelaide.

He gave away the bride when Norwood team-mate Phil Robin, who was to die at Gallipoli, married Nellie Honeywill in  Cairo in 1915.  Lance served at Gallipoli and as a major in the Anzac Mounted Division was severely wounded  at Al Arish, Sinai, in 1917.
 
He returned to manage family stations and was managing director of the stock and station agents, Goldsborough Mort. His son Tom, became NSW Premier in 1975.


P Robins May 2013

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