The collection contains the papers of Patrick Robert Brian Lewis (1910-1992), who served in his capacity as accountant and later City Councillor and Mayor of Johannesburg, as well as Member of the Transvaal Provincial Council.

Patrick Lewis was the Chairman of the City Council's Management Committee during the mid 1970s, when the South African Government was adament to make Pageview a white area, removing the Indian community, including all the Indian traders from Martindale and Pageview, to Lenasia. Together with Jan Niemand, the Secretary of the Department of Community Development, Patrick Lewis managed a compromise for the traders, by conceptualising the Oriental Plaza in Fordsburg, which was completed in 1975.

Lewis was a member of the Joint Council of Europeans and Africans, and he served as the Treasurer of the South African Institute of Race Relations, of which he was elected a Life Member in 1953.

Patrick Lewis' work was recognised by the University of the Witwatersrand, who conferred on him an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Law in 1970, and by the Johannesburg City Cou cil who elected him a Freeman of the City in 1973.