Sir Samuel Lewis CMG, BL (1843–1903) was a Sierra Leonean mayor of Freetown and lawyer. Sir Samuel Lewis was the first West African ever knighted and was the third Sierra Leonean to qualify as a barrister. Sir Samuel Lewis was the first mayor of Freetown after the Freetown Municipal Council was established. In 1896, he was made a knight, the first West African to achieve such an honor a year after he had been appointed mayor.
Sir Samuel Lewis was one of nine children (eight sons and a daughter) of an Aku businessman (in real estate and agricultural products) Elderman William Lewis of Oxford Street in the Freetown Municipal Council and wife Fanny. His siblings, Ebenezer Albert, Christopher Bright Lewis, William Jr, John, Josiah William, Emmanuel, Jacob and Caroline Matilda Lumpkin were all political leaders and heads of the colonial government of Freetown. Sir Samuel Lewis travelled to England by way of the relationship between his father William and the captain of a merchant ship that was shipping goods from Freetown to England.
Sir Samuel Lewis and other Eldermen who formed the Freetown Municipal Council were able to convince the Colonial Government with civil protest to relinquish power and the day to day running of the Municipal Council by Black Africans.