Researching Richard Lewis

Lewis was born in Auckland, New Zealand. At the age of twenty-two, he joined the New Zealand Police. He served as a police officer for eleven years. In 2001, he became the manager of Destiny Social Services, a branch of the Auckland-based Destiny Church. In 2003 Lewis was instrumental in the establishment of the Destiny New Zealand political party, which derived primarily from Destiny Church which is headed by Brian Tamaki.

The party went on to stand 42 candidates in the 2005 general election, and was one of only three parties to stand in all 7 Māori electorates. The party did not win any electorate seats and received 0.62% of the party vote, which did not meet the 5% threshold to achieve parliamentary representation. It was the highest polling party outside of parliament. Lewis himself stood as his party's candidate for Manukau East and came third behind the two major party candidates from Labour and National with 1,111 votes (3.4%).

In 2007, Destiny New Zealand was disbanded, with Lewis instead becoming leader of the newly formed The Family Party.

However, The Family Party failed to gain access into parliament again in the 2008 election. Lewis, who stood as the candidate for Manurewa, gained only 514 votes. The party deregistered in April 2010.

He was the chief executive of The AELTC (Championships) Limited, organiser and host of The Championships, Wimbledon. Lewis took up the post in 2012, having been executive chairman of the Rugby Football League since 2002. On 1 April 2009 he replaced Michael Farrar as chairman of Sport England.

In 2020, after 8 years as chief executive, Lewis stepped down and he was succeeded by Sally Bolton. She became the first woman chief executive to hold that post.

Lewis arrived in the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1858 from San Francisco. He was an architect by training, but started an undertaking business because of a lack of work for architects in the city's early days.

He served as an alderman on the first city council in 1862.

In the 1870s, Lewis returned to architecture, and designed the Masonic Temple and the Lascelles building at Government and Fort Streets.

Born in East Fremantle, Lewis attended Fremantle Boys' School and Scotch College before going on to Perth Technical College, where he trained as a cartographer and surveyor. Prior to entering politics, he worked in various surveying and urban development roles, eventually becoming managing director of a consulting surveying firm. Lewis was a City of Melville councillor from 1970 to 1984, and was elected deputy mayor three times. He first stood for parliament at the 1986 state election, and was elected to represent East Melville with 59.99 percent of the first-preference vote, replacing the retiring member Anthony Trethowan. East Melville was abolished prior to the 1989 election, but Lewis easily won the new seat of Applecross, which he continued to represent until his retirement at the 1996 election (which he did not contest).

Lewis held multiple portfolios in the shadow cabinets of both Barry MacKinnon and Richard Court, and after the Liberal victory at the 1993 election was appointed Minister for Planning and Minister for Heritage in the Court–Cowan ministry. Following the resignation of Doug Shave later in 1993, he was also appointed Minister for Housing, although he was replaced by Kevin Prince after a few months. After leaving politics, Lewis was named chairman of the East Perth Redevelopment Authority (serving from 1997 to 2001), and was also a director of the Western Power Corporation (from 1998 to 2001).

Lewis was educated at Winchester College and University College, Oxford. After leaving Oxford he was briefly editor of the London Review, but at the outbreak of the South African War he joined the army. He served in South Africa and was commissioned in the Devonshire Regiment. He transferred to the King's African Rifles in 1904, then to the Egyptian Army in 1908. After the outbreak of World War I he transferred to the Manchester Regiment and held the rank of lieutenant-colonel commanding the 10th battalion when he was killed.