Lewis, Dominic Bevan Wyndham (1894–1969)

Welsh journalist and biographer. His contributions to the Daily Express as ‘Beachcomber’ 1919–24 made his reputation as a satirically witty writer. From 1924 he wrote for the Daily Mail, the Sunday Referee, and other papers, and in later years he contributed to the News Chronicle as ‘Timothy Shy’.

As a French scholar and historian, he published studies of François Villon 1928 and Ronsard 1944, also biographies of Louis XI of France (King Spider, 1930) and of Charles V (Emperor of the West, 1932).

His essays and humorous writings were collected in a number of volumes, including A London Farrago (1922), At the Sign of the Blue Moon (1924), and On Straw and Other Conceits (1927).

As a young man he planned to join the legal profession, but his studies were interrupted by World War I. He served in France and Macedonia and was invalided out 1918, when he decided to enter journalism.