[1] Raised in Ireland, he made his name on the Dublin stage before moving to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London where he spent many years.

The son of William Lewis, a linendraper on Tower Hill, London, later an actor and manager in Ireland, he was born at Ormskirk, Lancashire, in or about 1748 (there is disagreement about his birth date); he had a Welsh clerical background, and was rumoured to be a great-grandson of Erasmus Lewis.

[2] On 15 October 1773, in his character of Belcour in The West Indian, Lewis made his first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre, where he was well received.

[2][5] Lewis's farewell to the public took place on 29 May 1809, at the Haymarket Theatre, where the company had moved, after the destruction of Covent Garden by fire.

He delivered an address, in which he said that he had been thirty-six years in the service of the public, and could not recall having once fallen under its displeasure.

[2] A member of his first Dublin company, Henrietta Amelia Leeson, who was a pupil of Charles Macklin, subsequently became Lewis's wife.

"The Theatrical Rambles of Mrs. and Mrs. John Green" On 6 June 1803, in partnership with Thomas Knight, Lewis took a lease on the Liverpool Theatre, which after his death came to his son.