Junius Edgar West

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Junius Edgar West (July 12, 1866 – January 1, 1947) was a Virginia politician and businessman who was born in Sussex County, Virginia, on July 12, 1866, and whose long and distinguished career culminated in two terms as the 22nd Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.

Biography

West was the fifth son of Henry Thomas West and Susan Cox West. He was educated in public and private schools in Sussex County and matriculated in the college preparatory course at the Suffolk Collegiate Institute in Suffolk, Virginia. He attended college at the University of North Carolina and studied law at both Washington and Lee University and the University of Virginia.

Upon completion of his formal education he returned to Waverly, Virginia and became Superintendent of Sussex County Schools in 1889. As superintendent, West suggested innovations that would improve the system in Sussex; a nine-month school term, better qualified teachers with increased pay, better schoolhouses and furniture, and a reasonable compensation to trustees for their services.

While residing in Waverly, West formed an insurance business with a brother, John West. Two years later he decided to seek greater opportunities in the insurance field in Suffolk, Virginia, where he joined the firm of Col. L. P. Harper. West soon became the

On January 17, 1903, West married Margaret Olive Beale, a daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Edwin W. Beale of Suffolk. Soon after their marriage they purchased the residence then located at the east corner of West Washington Street and St. James Avenue where they lived for the remainder of his life. The Wests had one child, a daughter, Margaret Beale, who was born in 1909.

West devoted much of his life to

During the years in which West served as lieutenant governor, Richard L. Brewer, Jr. of Suffolk served as Speaker of the House of Delegates (from 1920 to 1926) and a third Suffolk citizen, Robert Riddick Prentis, served as Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court of Appeals (from 1925 to 1931). It has been said that "[t]he spotlight that played simultaneously on these three men during an important transition period in the state's history made Suffolk, for a time, a kind of "little capital" of Virginia and conferred upon [the three men] ... the unofficial title of "Suffolk's Big Three".

West was always active in civic affairs. In the early 20th century West was, for a time, an owner and publisher of the Suffolk Herald, a forerunner of the