User:Sussexonian/T6

Lewis Coleman Cohen (28 March 1897 – 21 October 1966) was a Labour politician and property developer in the town of Brighton, in South East England. He was also an important figure in the town as head of the Brighton and Sussex Building Society which was to become the Alliance (later Alliance and Leicester) Building Society. He was ennobled as Baron Cohen of Brighton in 1965.

Lewis Cohen was born in 1897 to Hyam Cohen and Esther Szapira, being raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Hastings, East Sussex: the family moved to Brighton when he was 13.

Cohen was instrumental in developing the Brighton and Sussex Building Society, becoming its Secretary by 1929. As a socialist he welcomed the opportunity the building society movement gave to thousands of ordinary people in Brighton and elsewhere to become homebuyers. He went into partnership with the local building firms who were expanding Brighton into suburban areas such as Patcham.

Cohen was first elected to Brighton Council in 1930, and the following year contested the Parliamentary election in Brighton, where the Conservatives had an unassailable majority. He married Sonya Lawson in September 1939, with whom he had three children.

After the Second World War, Cohen was again elected to the council, becoming a leading figure in the municipality despite the council having a Conservative majority. He was elected Mayor of Brighton for 1956-57, and stood for Parliament for Brighton Kemptown in the 1951, 1955 and 1959 general elections, each time losing to the Conservatives by 5,000 votes.

By the time Cohen was created Lord Cohen of Brighton in 1965, his health had deteriorated; he was diagnosed with leukaemia and died the following year. At his memorial service in the Dome in Brighton, the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson spoke, saying: "His whole life was a search for the right answers to the relevant questions."