Taking over from the unfortunate Willie Hall, Charles Hewitt was an often controversial figure, whose main achievement at Orient was probably bringing future long-serving chairmen Harry Zussman and Arthur Page to the club.
Widely travelled as a player before the first World War, he appeared for five clubs in six years ranging from the north-east and Merseyside to the Midlands and London, with Tottenham. Five years with Crystal Palace was his longest spell anywhere and may have given him a taste for the capital, where, after cutting his managerial teeth in north Wales and taking Chester into the Football League, he made his name at Millwall.
In 1937 they became the first Third Division team ever to reach the FA Cup semi-final, knocking out three other First Division clubs on the way, and only losing 2-1 to the eventual winners Sunderland. The following season Millwall won Division Three South but in 1939 Hewitt was suspended for allegedly making illegal payments to players and was sacked.
In the second World War he served with distinction as a captain in the Navy and on the first day of 1946 was appointed by the O’s, in time for the Division Three South Cup which occupied the second half of the season; his team finished seventh of 11, one place higher than in the pre-Christmas competition.
League form was no better than pre-war. But it was still a shock to O’s supporters picking up the Evening News on September 23 1946, to read the main headline on the sports page (above ‘Finney in England XI’) that the club had a new manager. Hewitt, the story pointed out, ‘was instrumental in changing the club’s name and its colours, and he was hoping to build a promotion team’. It transpired that he had fallen out with the directors about as lack of funds for new players, and less than three weeks later, he was reinstated – leading to the chairman’s resignation.
The season remained a struggle, however, and despite bringing in three new players Orient finished in the bottom four, winning only a dozen of the 42 games. Even with a prolific centre-forward in Frank Neary from West Ham, the 1947-48 campaign was only a little more successful, moving up two places with 13 wins and towards the end of it was sacked, this time for good.
He returned to Millwall for seven years but could not get them promoted and was dismissed in January 1956.
