THOMAS Lewis was born in St Mary’s in 1873, the son of John Lewis a dock worker from Jersey and the family lived in a shared house at 24 Melbourne Street when he was a boy. The house was shared with the family of William Lewis who was a clockmaker. It was no surprise therefore that at the age of eleven Tommy became an apprentice watchmaker. From an early age Tommy was involved in the emergent local and national Labour movement. In 1901 he became Southampton’s first Labour Party councillor, representing St Mary’s Ward. He helped form local branches of the Dockers’ Union, the Ship Stewards’ Union and the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union.