Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part ...

David Ernest Thomas Floyd Ewin (17 February 1911 – 11 November 2003) was a British administrator and Trustee of

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

. Registered at birth as Ernest Thomas Floyd Ewin, he was the youngest of eleven children of Frederick Philip Ewin and his wife Ellen Floyd. He later adopted the name of David. Ewin served as Registrar and Receiver of St Paul's from 1944 to 1978, when he formally retired, but continued to work for the cathedral as a volunteer. In 1948, in

Totnes Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and ab ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, Ewin married Marion Lewis. They had one daughter. A freeman of London, in 1959 he served as Master of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London. In 1965, Ewin organized the

state funeral A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honour people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones and distinctive elements o ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

. He was appointed an Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

later in the year and was knighted in the 1974 Birthday Honours.Sir David Floyd Ewin: Administrator of St Paul’s who organised Churchill’s funeral
(obituary), ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 18 November 2003 In the 1990s, Ewin was a Deputy in the

Castle Baynard Castle Baynard is one of the 25 wards of the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London, England. Features The ward covers an irregularly shaped area, sometimes likened to a tuning fork, bounded on the east by the wards of ...

ward of the

City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the local authority of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's f ...

.''The Municipal Year Book and Public Services Directory'' (1994), p. 96 He retired to

Torbay Torbay is a unitary authority with a borough status in the ceremonial county of Devon, England. It is governed by Torbay Council, based in the town of Torquay, and also includes the towns of Paignton and Brixham. The borough consists of ...

, where he died. His obituary in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' says of him that he "gave virtually the whole of his working life – and many years of his retirement – to the service of St Paul's Cathedral."Sir David Floyd Ewin
(obituary), ''

'', 18 November 2003

Publications

* David Floyd Ewin, ''The Splendour of St Paul's'' (Norwich: Jarrold, 1973, )

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Floyd Ewin, David 1911 births 2003 deaths Knights Bachelor Officers of the Order of the British Empire