Jewish politicians in Britain before 1900

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See also Jewish politicians in Britain

List of British Jewish politicians of Jews by birth but not necessarily practising.

The English Jews, we are told, are not Englishmen. They are separate people, living locally in this island, but living morally and politically in communion with their brethren who are scattered all over the world. An English Jew looks on a Dutch or Portuguese Jew as his countryman, and of an English Christian as a stranger. This want of patriotic feeling, it is said, renders a Jew unfit to exercise political functions. ~ Lord Macaulay.[1]

Jews could not sit in the British Parliament until 1858 when the Jews Relief Act was passed.

British MPs

British Members of Parliament listed chronologically by first election date (in brackets)

Pre-1900

Name Party Elected Lost Seat or Retired/Stood down MP's Seat Highest Office Held Honours
Benjamin Disraeli Conservative Party 1837 1876 (Stood down) Buckinghamshire Earl of Beaconsfield (1876) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1868 and 1874–1880. He was sometime Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy Councillor, Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Privy Seal, created Earl of Beaconsfield, awarded the Order of the Garter (KG), and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Eventual Leader of the Conservative Party and said by some to be the first Jewish Prime Minister, but in fact he and all his siblings were baptised into the Church of England while children. He died without issue.
Lionel de Rothschild Liberal Party (UK) 1847 (not admitted until July 1858) 1868 (Lost) City of London First practising Jew to be admitted to the House of Commons, having previously refused to take the Christian Oath. A member of the prominent Rothschild banking family in England.
Sir David Salomons, 1st Baronet Liberal Party (UK) 1851 and 1852 (lost). 1859 1873 (Died) Greenwich, Kent Created a Baronet (1869). A lawyer and Magistrate, the first Jewish Sheriff and Lord Mayor of the City of London (1855); the second practising Jew to be admitted to the House of Commons, in 1859, having previously refused the Christian Oath.
Mayer Amschel de Rothschild Liberal Party (UK) 1859 1874 (Died) Hythe, Kent. High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire (1847) A banker.
Sir Francis Henry Goldsmid, 2nd Baronet Liberal Party (UK) 1860 1878 (Died) Reading, Berkshire First Jewish Barrister
Frederick David Goldsmid Liberal Party (UK) 1865 1866 (Died) Honiton, Devon Father of the MP below
Sir Julian Goldsmid, 3rd Baronet Liberal Party (UK) 1866, 1870 and 1885 1868 (Lost), 1880 (Lost) and 1896 (Died) Honiton, Devon, Rochester, Kent, and St Pancras South, London.
George Jessel Liberal Party (UK) 1868 1873 (Lost) (1883 (died) Dover Kent Knighted Solicitor-General for England and Wales (1871–1873) and Master of the Rolls (1873–1883); elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
Farrer Herschell Conservative Party 1874 1885 (Lost) City of Durham Baron Herschell (1886) died 1899 Solicitor-General for England and Wales (1880–1885) and Lord Chancellor (1886) and (1892–1895), Order of the Bath( GCB), Privy Councillor (PC), Queen's Counsel (QC) Married with issue.[2]
Henry Drummond Wolff Conservative Party 1874 1885 (Left on a special diplomatic mission) Christchurch (1874–1880) and Portsmouth (1880–1885) Admitted to the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) and Order of the Bath (GCB). Heavily involved in foreign affairs and diplomacy.[3]
Arthur Cohen Liberal Party (UK) 1880 1888 (Retired) Southwark, London (1880–1885) and Southwark West (1885–1888) "First professing Jew to graduate at Cambridge".[4]
Henry de Worms Conservative Party 1880 1895 Greenwich (1880–1885) and Liverpool East - Toxteth (1885–1895) Baron Pirbright (1895) Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (1885–1888); Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (1888–1892); Privy Councillor (PC)(1889); Deputy Lieutenant (DL); Justice of the Peace (JP), and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Youngest son of Solomon, Baron de Worms (Austrian Empire) by Henrietta, first daughter of Samuel Moses Samuel. Henry became President of the Anglo-Jewish Association. He died without issue.[5]
Sir Samuel Montagu, 1st Baronet (1894) Liberal Party (UK) 1885 1900 (retired) Tower Hamlets, Whitechapel division, London. Baron Swaythling (1907) died 1911 Assumed the additional/alternative surname of Montagu. Head of Samuel Montagu & Co., foreign bankers. Married Ellen, dau., of Louis Cohen. They had a son and heir named Louis (b.1869) who became the 2nd Baron.[6][7]
Sir Edward Sassoon, 2nd Baronet. Liberal Unionist Party 1899 1912 (Died) Hythe, Sussex Married dau. of Baron Gustav de Rothschild.[8][9]
Sydney Stern Liberal Party (UK) 1891 1895 (Lost) Stowmarket, Suffolk Baron Wandsworth (1895).[10][11] Became the head of the London firm of financiers, Stern Brothers. He was the son of David de Stern from Portugal, although Sydney was born in London where his mother's Goldsmid family resided. He died unmarried.[12]
Gustav Wilhelm Wolff Conservative Party 1892 1910 (Retired) Belfast East A partner in Harland and Wolff shipyards, Belfast. Eldest son of Moritz Wolff in Hamburg.[13]

References

  1. ↑ Macaulay, Lord, Historical Essays, Oxford University Press, London, 1932, citation from "Civil Disabilities of the Jews: January 1831", p.84-96.
  2. ↑ Whitaker's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage, London, 1923, p.325.
  3. ↑ Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed & Official Classes London, 1903, p.1603.
  4. ↑ Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  5. ↑ Cockayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage, edited by H. Arthur Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, and Lord Howard de Walden, vol.x, London, 1945, p.534.
  6. ↑ Kelly's 1903, p.1056.
  7. ↑ Whitaker's, 1923, p.536.
  8. ↑ Kelly's, 1903, p.1311.
  9. ↑ The Times, 25 May, 1912.
  10. ↑ Kelly's, 1903, p.1529.
  11. ↑ Jewish Year Book 1896-7, p.102.
  12. ↑ Cockayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage, edited by Geoffrey H. White, M.A., F.S.A., & R. S. Lea, M.A., vol.xii, part ii, London, 1959, p.339-340.
  13. ↑ Kelly's, 1903, p.1603.
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