Helen Fry
The Jews of Devon and Cornwall: A Case Study

Dr Helen Fry - The Jews of Devon and Cornwall: A Case Study

- [Lauren] All right, Helen, welcome to everyone today. Thank you all for joining us. And Helen, whenever you’re ready, I’ll hand over to you.

• [Helen] Thank you so much, Lauren. I’ve turned my video off just for the time being because it’s lagging this evening. I think the internet might be struggling, so to protect the quality of the PowerPoint. And Lauren’s going to very kindly do the PowerPoint for us today, so thank you so much Lauren. And I hope that you’ll enjoy some of the fruits of my research on the Jews of Devon and Cornwall. And I think wherever you are in the world, particularly with Jewish communities, you find that most families have links to the Jewish communities of Devon and Cornwall. So yeah, enjoy some of what I’m going to share with you today. And I wanted to start really thinking about, very early on, about Jews and mining the tin mines of Cornwall because this is something that I’m frequently asked when I give talks, “Is there really any evidence that Jews were involved in tin mining?” And in fact it is a heavily contested area. The evidence is ambiguous. And what I want to do is give you a backdrop to some of these kind of wider themes before we look at the specific Jewish communities of Devon and Cornwall, namely Exeter, Plymouth, Falmouth and Penzance.

And if we go back to Jews and mining, there has been suggestion that way back, the Phoenicians actually brought Jewish merchants to Cornwall to buy tin. It’s not something we can establish for concrete, in terms of concrete physical evidence. But the rumours are, and the oral traditions are pretty strong. And, of course, in Cornwall there are place names like Jew’s Houses. And again, the providence is difficult to establish, particularly because the Cornish language is extinct. And then there’s another very interesting oral tradition about Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea who later purchases the tomb in which the body of Jesus is placed before the resurrection, as Christians believe. And the questions often asked again to me, did Jesus walk the Cornish landscape as a Jew? Not, of course, in any way as a Christian, ‘cause of course he was Jewish. Tales that Joseph, the wealthy merchant and Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus once came to Cornwall. So that links with Jewishness, with Jewish personalities in Cornwall, the oral traditions are pretty strong. Whether Jesus really came, I don’t know, but there is a song that the tin miners once sang and the first line sort of went along, “Joseph was a tin man and his miners loved him well.” So was that Joseph of Arimathea? And there’s another oral tradition that after the destruction of the second temple, that possibly Jews worked in the extraction of Cornish tin.

But again, you know, we don’t have any concrete evidence for this, but I think, what I found in my research is there’s often a kernel of truth in these oral traditions. Next slide, please. But what we do get with regard to the southwest of England, concrete material evidence of Jews in that area, in the mediaeval period and, in fact, certainly during the 11th century. And I’ve put up a slide there just to sort of give you an overview. William Rufus and Henry I, and I’ve given their dates of their reigns there, actually, we’ll go into more detail shortly, gave protection to Jews. And I know Trudy Gold who asked me to do the lecture today, was quite interested in me looking at some of the mediaeval period as well, backdrop to this area. Because I think people will find that fascinating and it’s an area that’s again, not often studied. By 1188 as I put there, there was a Jewish community in Exeter. Dartmoor at that point was a major source of tin. So again, is there a link between tin mining and Jews but this time in Devon? Again, hard to establish. But really there’s no firm settlement of Jews in Cornwall until Richard I, and we’re talking about the latter part of the 12th century. Jews were barred, of course, from most professions. They were only allowed by law to become money lenders. There is evidence in 1197, there’s a document that was written by William de Wrotham. He was actually Chief of the Stannaries and he gives evidence of Jews in the tin trade in this form. And he wrote, “Neither man or woman.” It’s very similar to some of the biblical in the Christian tradition, biblical kind of wording. “Neither man or woman, Christian nor Jew shall presume in any manner to remove tin, either by sea or land out of the counties of Devon and Cornwall unless he or she first has a licence.” So that’s really the only concrete evidence we have of Jews working with tin and the stannaries. Next slide, please. And I’ll come back to the mediaeval period just shortly. But of course by the 18th century, this really was, for Cornwall, that great age of tin production. And whilst we don’t have Jews necessarily being involved in the tin mining itself, i.e. in the extraction, we certainly have local Jewish families who are investing in the tin mines.

And there you can see the Jacob family of Falmouth, quite a rare photograph. And he certainly invested in the tin mines. He… Jacob Jacobs is actually buried in London now. But it was an instrumental figure in the Falmouth Jewish community. And then unusually, and I meant to pull up an image from the internet for this, but you can probably find it. This figurine, this mysterious figurine was dug up on an archaeological dig in 1853 on Bodwen Moor, well actually it’s probably referring to Bodwin Moor and it was near what was established as a Jew’s House by oral tradition. So there he is in his, sort of, high backed chair is a bearded man. And on his cloak there are these Hebrew letters, Nun, Resh, Shin, Men. So again, does that link back to some aspect of Jews living in Cornwall? Next slide, please. So I want to turn back to the Jews of mediaeval Exeter. And that scroll looks quite incredible, doesn’t it? Well it’s not a Torah scroll, you can probably see that actually. But when I first handled it at the National Archives, it was very exciting 'cause it felt like a, kind of, ancient scroll coming out. And this actually dates from the 12th century and you can access, next slide please, you can access these international archives. Anybody with reader’s ticket can go and see. So Exeter was a very, very important centre of mediaeval jury. Next slide, please. 1177, I’ve put up some key points here. 1177 was the earliest evidence of any Jews in Exeter when there was a law passed to grant a cemetery beyond the city walls. We don’t now know the precise location of that, but the community had a mediaeval Jewish cemetery in Exeter.

We also know that at that point it had its own synagogue, but we don’t know where. And in 1181, we have the first financial transaction that survives for a Jewish business in Exeter. And these mediaeval documents survive not only in the National Archives at Kew and those are the ones that I’ve used, but also there are, as I’ve put there, the Royal Archives in Windsor and also in the British Museum. And these are accessible to members of the public who are doing research and it, kind of, just takes you back a thousand years. Next slide, please. And at this point we have to understand the backdrop that England’s Jews were the property of the Crown. And, I’ve quoted myself, I don’t normally do this, but I’ve quoted myself and one of my books, actually from my book on the Jews of Exeter, in which I said, “On the one hand they came under the King’s protection and on the other they were useful to him because periodically the King could demand money from them to fill the empty royal coffers.” And money from England’s Jews, which were just confiscated by the King, were often used to fund his wars and campaigns. And I’m not sure if you are aware, but also to fund the crusades. And because the Jews were useful in terms of money for the King, they received his protection and that was really important. And as I mentioned already, their trading was reserved and restricted to usury. So, they could only lend money to Christians. And the prophet from that, next slide please, could actually sometimes be quite substantial. But the Jews then, as a result of that, could be heavily taxed by the King. And you never quite knew which king was going to exact the most taxation from the Jews. So, although many were incredibly wealthy because usury was the only profession that they could engage in, and Christians were not allowed by Christian law, by Canon law to lend money, this was restricted to Jews.

But it also meant, as I’ve said, that the King could exact a heavy, and often did, taxation on the Jews of England. Next, please. And the scroll I showed in the very beginning, actually comes from the Exeter Archae. Now you’ve probably never heard of an archae, but in England there were six or seven, certainly six named centres of archae and the Exeter Archae survives in the National Archives. Just to give you a bit of a backdrop to the establishment of these archaes, these centres, these important mediaeval centres. And it was like a real physical, a large physical chest that could be locked. So, when Henry II succeeded by Richard the Lionheart, by Richard I. His reign, Richard I, saw a succession of riots against Jews. We think later of the massacres in Lincoln. And while Richard the Heart was away fighting, the riots against the Jews meant that their businesses were raided, their premises, and with it documents were stolen and burned that had been, that had belonged to Jews. I mean, these rioters had no idea, in effect, what documents they were destroying. And when Richard I came back and he needed more money for his campaigns, there was no evidence of what the Jews owned, in terms of the wealth because this had been destroyed. There was no evidence on which the King could officially tax the Jewish communities of England. So, it was Richard I that instigated these centres, these archae. Then they were, as I said, these chests in which the financial transactions would be held. Next slide, please.

And they would be under lock and key. And they were, two keys were actually issued, one to a Jewish businessman and another to a Christian. So both had to be present for the unlocking of the archae and it was meant to protect the financial transactions. So the King at any point could pillage these, the financial stuff of the Jewish community. And if you look at this, you can see there, you can just make out Devon, it’s quite incredible to start reading this kind of stuff. Unfortunately on the left hand side, somebody in the last few decades, has actually stamped it with what was then the public record office stamp. Next, please. And these are some of the images that I took myself on my camera of the Exeter Archae, incredibly fragile. You can see they’re round up like a scroll there. And these contain all the financial transactions of the mediaeval Jewish community. And there will be the equivalent for other centres like Bristol was a mediaeval centre. And Lincoln, for example, London had its own archae. Next, please. Next slide. You can see hopefully, yeah. And this is how they arrived on my desk at the National Archives, there were several of these old documents dating to the 12th century. Next slide, please. So Henry III, when he comes to become King during the 13th century. Age old story, the Jews of England are the coffers for the King. And they lived in tolerance with their Christian neighbours. But, of course, that would all change with the ascension to the throne of Edward I in 1272. And as I’ve put there for me reflecting on this period, it marked a really dark and tragic era because so much had been extracted from the Jews of England.

For example, three years later in 1275, Edward I levied this tax of 25,000 marks on the Jews. They were unable to pay, the kings before him had plundered the Jewish wealth. There was really nothing left in the community. The Jewish community could not pay this tax. And as a result, Edward I passed this law called the Statute, Statute de, oh I can’t say it tonight, Judasimo, sorry. And that prohibited any money lending by Jews. He’s starting to restrict the community such that Jews were now only allowed to live, under this statute, in towns and cities where there was an archae. And Exeter, of course, was one of them. And ultimately in 1290, when the King realised he could get no more money, he could get no money out of the Jewish community, he decided, and it was the first, certainly from my study of Jewish history, the first in Europe to expel Jews formally from the country. 1219 marks the expulsion of the Jews from England. And it meant, just don’t forget that Jews had been restricted to living in these six or seven places, Archaes, these centres where these documents were, they weren’t allowed to live anywhere else in England. But after the expulsion of 1290, it meant with regard to Exeter, there would not be another settled Jewish community for 400 years. But what is fascinating is that Jews continued to live secretly in the southwest of England. After the expulsion from Spain and Portugal, 1492 and even some coming over on the Spanish Armada, later in the 1580s, Jews continued to live in Cornwall, in Wales and Ireland. There are similar traditions of the Marranos, those Jewish Catholics who secretly, or Jews who’d converted to Catholicism, who secretly practised their Judaism. So they were still secretly Jews.

And the Conversos, those Jews who chose to convert to Catholicism for political motives. Those two groups would be found, or be evidence for them, in the southwest of England before Cromwell allows Jews to return to England in 1656. Next slide, please. And before we get into the community’s proper, I just wanted to pull out a few examples of evidence of Jews living in England secretly, I guess. Or at least, I don’t know, I think the Kings and then Queen Elizabeth I certainly knew but did nothing about the Jewish presence in England. They were allowed to sort of continue to live quietly. But Francis Drake, however, many of you might know this or not, when he circumnavigated the globe, in his log book of the Golden Hind it notes that his quartermaster was quote, “Moses the Jew.” And Moses the Jew actually lived in the Barbican in Plymouth. In the 16th and 17th century, so before Cromwell readmits Jews to England, Marranos settled in Plymouth, that we know. And London Marranos would station their agents in Plymouth. Plymouth being a really significant port. And the purpose was firstly to promote trade for the London Marranos, but also to inform Marranos that had fled from Spain and Portugal if it was safe to practise again, not only from Plymouth but also from Penzance. There were trade routes into Spain and along the grapevine the Marranos could pick up any evidence, next slide please, of whether it was safe to return to particular countries of Europe.

Have we got our next slide, please? Famously, oh no, beg your pardon, yes, there we go. The beautiful lady, very wealthy lady on the left there, Gracia Mendes, otherwise known as Dona Gracia. In 1536, on her way travelling to Antwerp, but she’s diverted to Plymouth and so she stays in England for a time because of the Inquisition, news comes to a message to her that it’s not safe to land in Antwerp. She’s a very important businesswoman at that time. And of course she goes on to found the resort of Tiberius. Another influential figure in 1617 is Antonio Dacosta Doliveira. And he’s based in Plymouth, this time he’s conducting commercial transactions for an agent in London, Count Gondomar, who’s a Spanish Ambassador in London. So you have these very interesting links, sort of, under the network that no one’s too bothered about some Jews being able to live in tolerance in the southwest. Next slide, please. And it’s not really until the 1720s, and this is true for Falmouth, for Penzance, for Plymouth and Exeter, that Jews finally return to be a more settled community. We’ve got a very old photograph there, rare photograph, of what was initially used as the Falmouth Synagogue for those early services. And in 1766 the first synagogue was opened in Hamblyn’s Court. Next slide, please.

But it wouldn’t be until 1806. There we go. Got some more images there of Hamblyn’s Court. Next slide, please. And it’s not until 1806 that the first synagogue is built, it’s a purpose-built synagogue in Smithick Hill. It’s still there. There is a plaque today, thankfully, a blue plaque on the building. And if you do visit Falmouth, and some of you probably have already, do make a point of going to see it because it’s really unchanged on the exterior from 1806 when it was first built. And one of the first things, next slide please, you notice… Yeah that photograph, would you think that’s a synagogue? Not necessarily. It looks like a Nonconformist church. And that’s precisely the point because the synagogues were built by Christian builders and designed by Christian architects in very much the style of a Nonconformist church. And what was true of this synagogue and also of Penzance was, actually and also of Plymouth, the entrance was around the back. And that of course was to make it very discreet at a time when there was concern of, throughout history, of pogroms against Jews, of antisemitism. Next slide, please. And so the door you see there today is not the main entrance that was used for worship. It did have a lady’s gallery, not dissimilar to a Nonconformist church as like a Methodist or a Baptist church. It had its own mikvah at the side, but that didn’t survive.

We haven’t yet found any interior photographs of the Falmouth Synagogue. It would be nice actually if something like that turned up at some point. Falmouth being a very important port in its heyday and being the deepest port for large ships to be able to come in and out and the windows overlooked the harbour. And it was said that during Shabbat services, the Jewish community, those who were trading and using the ports could look out and see various ships moving or coming in to the port. In terms of Falmouth, it saw a decline in 1881 and it never really recovered. Eventually the synagogue was sold, we don’t know, the details are bit hazy. It is now belonging to an artist. It does have listed status so hopefully it warrants it protection going forwards. Next slide, please. Yeah, there’s one of my own photographs before the plaque went up of the synagogue there. So in good state of repair. Next slide, please. But what has survived? Again, this is a photograph I took when I visited the Royal Institution in Cornwall, which is in Truro. Various ritual artefacts have survived from this period, from the Falmouth Synagogue.

Five amazing Torah scrolls. I think one might have been loaned out now to a community in London, but they were donated by Samuel Jacob, as the community is being wound down. They also have some incredible silver that survived, one rimmonim dating to the late 17th century. Absolutely exquisite that you can now see in the Jewish Museum in London. Next slide, please. And if we look at those first settlers. Next slide, please. The Jacobs, very influential, Frances and Moses Jacobs, but also Alexander Moses. He was instrumental in founding the community in the 1720s. Zender Falmouth, as he was known. And there are very few Jewish ancestors of those that lived in Devon and Cornwall latterly that cannot trace their links back to Zender Falmouth, is quite extraordinary. His descendants are now all over the world. He was a silversmith hailing from Alsace in Germany and he offered work to those itinerant travellers. And they would make up, they would come back to the synagogue and make up a minyan for services and high holy days. So he recruited peddlers and hawkers, furnished them with trades and loans to be able to help them get on their feet. But when we come to the likes of Frances and Moses Jacobs, when we think of Cornwall but also Devon, they aren’t necessarily made up totally of hawkers and peddlers. And that’s something which is a myth which quite often attaches itself to the Jews of Devon and Cornwall. Next slide, please. But they are involved in investments. And I’ve listed them here because it is quite extraordinary that Moses Jacob is investing in various railways, shipping, and he has shares in the Falmouth Docks Company. And we only know that because a rare book survived, pencil written, in an archive that was discovered relating to the Falmouth Synagogue.

And the tin mines he actually invested in. And I’ve listed all the tin mines in which he’s invested. In 1844, he invested nearly 2,500 pounds. That’s a heck of a lot of money in that period. But other families in Cornwall at this time were pawn brokers, silversmiths. They are highly crafted tradesmen, watchmakers and clockmakers. So they’re not only itinerant hawkers and peddlers. They’re into printing, glass, chinaware, merchants, opticians. And one of Moses Jacob’s sons, John Jacob is described as a clothier to nobility, gentry and clergy. So he had a really good trade there. Next, please. And in the late 1770s, Falmouth did establish its own cemetery. So, it had been worshipping in Hamblyn Court, which was not a purpose-built synagogue. And as you find with the Jews of Southwest England, they quite often purchased their cemetery before they ever managed to erect a purpose-built synagogue. And that’s pretty much true of all of those four communities. Thankfully Falmouth today has got listed protection. Its future had been pretty rocky but these are amongst some of the oldest Georgian cemeteries in England and it’s so important that they are protected. And one of the earliest decipherable stones in this cemetery dates to 1780 and it’s Esther, the wife of Barnet Levy.

So, really the last burial in the 1880s, the community is in decline and would not again see another worshipping community, not dissimilar to Penzance. And I want to turn to Penzance now. And we’ve got a picture coming up, next slide please, of Penzance Synagogue. Yeah, I mean, it’s further dilapidated. I took this photograph in the late 1990s, but it’s there annexed to the pub. It was built, again, at the turn of the 19th century, not dissimilar to Falmouth. Again, the first Jews came to Penzance from the 1720s from the Rhineland. They had a first purpose-built synagogue here in 1768, but this one has been revised and expanded in the early 19th century. Leased to a member of the Bramwell family because, again, Jews couldn’t own land at this point. And so the Bramwells, a local wealthy family, a Christian family sort of leased it. And this purpose-built is a second purpose-built shul on the same site, but it only seated around 20 members. The community did have a mikvah but it was not attached to the synagogue itself. Next slide, please. So, we should have an interior photograph. It’s very rare. No, I dunno if I… Yeah, here we go. Yeah, so there’s a rare interior photograph and it’s not brilliant but it gives us some kind of idea. It’s not dissimilar to the architecture of Falmouth, not dissimilar to Exeter in some ways, although the ark isn’t as elaborate as Exeter. And the decalogue you can see there on the top now survives in the Jewish museum.

This was taken when it was sold to the Christian brethren later. Now the people of Penzance, the Jewish community, yet, again, we had frequent visitors of peddlers and hawkers, but the businessmen of Penzance actually start to establish their shops and their businesses in household goods. Many of them become navy agents. And this is something that’s true of Plymouth as well, that they actually supply goods to ships which are coming into the ports. And so as with Plymouth, they were given permission to go onto the ships with their baskets and their wares and to sell to the sailors. In terms of the ritual artefacts, next slide please, you see very much, very little of this community survived. We have the exterior of the building, yes. We don’t really have much of its heritage in spite of attempts to track down its heritage. We do have surviving, and I believe, again, it’s in the Jewish Museum in London. I’ll come to Lemon Hart shortly, who’s donated a Torah scroll, pointer, six candlesticks and chandeliers and a curtain with red, a red Saturn curtain with white border. And this is really all that survived. Very little else of the community. But the minute books which tell us about the life of the community were rescued by Cecil Roth, that bastion of Anglo-Jewish history. Amazing historian. And he’s donated out to the Brotherton Library in Leeds. So that can be seen, as well. The community, again, it survived a bit longer than Falmouth but the Jewish community of Cornwall did decline and the synagogue was finally sold in 1906, gutted in the 1980s and incorporated into the Star Inn next door. And when I visited it was actually a children’s ballpark.

I suppose it’s good that it’s being used but part of me would like to think that it could’ve been saved as a Jewish community centre for education even if there is no worshipping community there, but perhaps for education. Excuse me, next slide, please. And the Penzance Cemetery, absolutely exquisite cemetery. It is in better condition, it’s listed, it’s in better condition than the Falmouth Cemetery because it’s in this very sheltered walled garden and the conditions of the stones are just incredible. And this was leased in the 1740s. It makes it the oldest Jewish synagogue in the southwest of England. So, really vital that that’s preserved. And the first headstone that we can read is just a fragment, but it dates the 1741. You know, this is incredible heritage. Again, the freehold wasn’t originally given to the Jewish community, it was taken up by Canon John Rogers and he had quite a lot of estates around Penzance. So, originally this cemetery, we see it’s built up there now, but originally it was just open fields and so this was given over to the Jewish community. It would’ve been on the outskirts of Penzance and it was rented in 1808. We know by 1808 they were paying just a guinea a year for ground rent. Next slide, please. So before I move on to Devon and Cornwall, you’ve really got a whistle stop tour of the Jews of Devon and Cornwall today. I want to just touch on that famous family of Penzance, the Hart family, the, sort of, “Rum dynasty” as I’ve called it. The family originating from Weinheim. They settled, there’re amongst the earliest settlers in Penzance in the 1720s. Abraham Hart trades in Penzance as goldsmith and silversmith. He has interesting links to the West Indies and you can read more about that in the research and the book I co-edited with Keith Pearce on the Jews of Cornwall.

And there were traders who then settled from Jamaica in Cornwall, the Lopez family being one of them. And it’s early, it’s in the 1720s that Abraham Hart starts importing rum through Penzance. And it’s his son Lazarus Hart that develops the business even further and the closer connections with the West Indies and they also start to own various ships. And famously, one of their ships is shipwrecked off Lundy Island in 1793. So, huge business losses for the family. But Lazarus Hart had a shop in Penzance and when he died in 1803, business was taken over by his son, next slide, Lemon Hart. And Lemon Hart, of course, that trading family is still trading as Lemon Hart Rum and most of you probably heard of Lemon Hart Rum. So he took over from his father Lazarus and he again expanded the shipping business and a very well-known ship, Amelia, sailed between Penzance and Swansea, for example, trading in rum. And the tot of rum that the sailors have in the Navy, which still continues today actually, they still get their tot of rum has been supplied by Lemon Hart and as I’ve put there in the middle of the 19th century in 1849, it’s recorded that he supplied the Royal Navy. This is without the other trading links, with 100,000 gallons of rum a year. There you go for your pub quiz. If that question ever comes up, you’ll know the answer. 100,000 gallons of run a year for the Royal Navy.

But ultimately the communities in Penzance and Falmouth couldn’t survive. There was a community in Truro, it survived even less of time with a synagogue than those other two communities. But of course for Devon, the story is very different. Next slide, please. The communities were established around the same time as the Cornish communities in the 1720s, '30s. And these of course are the communities, next slide please, in Plymouth and Exeter. And as I think we’ll see one, yes. Very, very important heritage and I really hope going forwards it will continue to be protected. This is listed, it is the Plymouth Synagogue interior, the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue, surviving synagogue in the English speaking world. Absolutely beautiful. There’s a very small community there now. Next slide, please. We can see hopefully an exterior of the building that again, but for the obvious stained glass windows there, you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t a Nonconformist chapel. Next slide, please. Should get some exterior shots I’m hoping. Can we have next slide, please. Thank you.

Yeah, very simplistic exterior there and I might forget to say, but Plymouth during the Second World War was heavily bombed. The blitz took a heavy toll, because of its importance as a navy port. It’s not far from Dartmouth either but because of the docks and its naval links, it took a heavy, heavy toll. And most of the centre of Plymouth was rebuilt in the 1960s, the '50s, '60s all concrete buildings. But astonishingly, the whole of that area and around the Barbican, pretty much was blitzed, was flattened. And there’s one photograph and I still find it quite moving actually, that the synagogue is this building that survives in the middle of it. How it survived the blitz is just extraordinary. But this is the original building and you, kind of, walk around the back on the right hand side there to the entrance and you can see the main entrance. Plymouth, the important naval and shipping port. Jews are arriving here already in the 1720 from Alsace, from the Rhineland, from Bohemia. Of course they didn’t have their synagogue, their purpose-built synagogue to start with.

They met in private rooms, it’s quite common as we know. But this synagogue itself, the purpose-built synagogue dates from 1762 in Catherine Street. Next slide, please. The ark is pretty unique. It’s thought that the ark was imported from Germany, same with Exeter actually, possibly in pieces and put together. It’s one of the most exquisite arks that I’ve seen. Original is still in use. And those beautiful benches, all still original, are thought to have been made by dockyard carpenters, not necessarily Jewish, actually. Next slide, please. I’m hoping we’ve got a picture, a closeup of that incredible ark. Yeah, look at this. This has been beautifully restored with the help a few years ago by Heritage Money. So, founding members in the 1740s, we know Joseph Sherrenbeck and his wife, they bought a piece of land on the Hoe, which would be the first cemetery in Plymouth. We’ll come to photograph of that shortly. A pointer survived in the community dating to 1745 with the inscription that it belonged to Yehuda Yacov Schermbeck. By the 1750s we’ve got 52 male members of the shul. It’s gradually expanding and by the end of the 1760s, we’ve got more than 40 Jewish families attached to the synagogue. Most of them fleeing various persecutions in Europe. The Joseph family become absolutely instrumental in this community. Abraham Joseph who takes one of the names on the lease for the synagogue, he was sort of known locally as the King of the Jews.

Very important, he developed the whole dealership with the Royal Navy in what was known as slops. So they became known as slopman. And they would sell trinkets and all kinds of things to sailors on the ships. They would board the ships, almost like a market on the deck of the ship. And it saw the, kind of, development of the royal naval uniform because some of the officers would say, “Oh yes, I’d like buckles for my shoes and I don’t like the buttons I’ve got, they’re not very elaborate, I’ll have those.” And so you get this development and of course these Jewish, local Jews would be involved in making, eventually, some of the uniform. And it was Abraham Joseph who was appointed slopman to his Royal Highness Prince William Henry. He was the third son of George III. And he owned several properties around the Barbican. And if I’m not mistaken, he’s, yeah, you can just about, can’t quite decipher his grave anymore, but it’s one of the oldest graves on the Hoe Cemetery.

Next slide, please. And his son Joseph Joseph, really significant because he traded as silversmith again, he was a very prominent slop merchant and navy agent. He went on to marry Edal of Liskeard, again, another prominent Jewish family. And Joseph Joseph was incredibly generous as a president of the synagogue. Next slide, please. And in the arrival at this time, you have various families which become notable with the Jewish community of Plymouth. You’ve got the Emdens, the Jacobs, Nathan, the Levys, Simons. And they establish this prosperous community with very strong naval links to Portsmouth, as well and to Chatham. Next slide, please, I’m going to keep an eye on the time. But it wasn’t the only synagogue in Plymouth. There was also the Dock Minyan. And in my book on the Jews of Plymouth, I very carefully try to reconstruct, it’s quite tricky 'cause we don’t really have much documentation about the Dock Minyan. But the founding members I’ve listed there for you, some of you may be related to them. And really the only item which survives, which again is in the Jewish Museum in London, is this exquisite silver spice box dating to around the turn of the century of 1800s. Next slide, please. And apart from the main Jewish community that’s worshipping in Catherine Street, we have the Devonport Hebrew Congregation.

Again, I’m fascinated by this congregation. It was just known, it was a second minyan. Started, as I put there, in 1907. Destroyed, sadly, in the blitz in 1941. We have this really rare photograph and we are not a hundred percent sure, but we think it’s the Devonport minyan and it looks as though it’s, sort of, in a warehouse. Very, very primitive. If anybody knows or can identify that picture, that would be absolutely fantastic. Make my day. Next slide, please. Plymouth has two cemeteries, one on the Hoe. It’s a big walled cemetery, which now has listed status that only happened in about the last four or five years, if not less. So again, these sites as heritage were in danger. The oldest death, the oldest burial is of Jacob Sherrenbeck’s wife, Sarah. And in the 1750s a community was expanding so much, it needed more burial space. So, this plot was expanded and acquired for the community. Next slide, please. We have some unusual or some quite old photographs there, coming up I think of the cemetery. And of course some of you listening today, your ancestors will be buried here. And I remember when I was writing the book on the Jews of Plymouth, to ensure that we took as many photographs as possible of each of the stones. It was heavily overgrown. So one of my sons and myself, we spent two or three days hacking back, all that growth 'cause these sites are so important to catalogue. Next slide, please.

The Gifford Place Cemetery, which was acquired because the Hoe had become full, was actually purchased in the 1860s. It has now over 700 burials. And again, for some of you will have relatives who are buried there. So this will will mean something for you. And what I discovered was one of my great uncles was the caretaker. So I’m not Jewish, but one of my great uncles was the caretaker at one point of the Gifford Place Cemetery. And I had no idea, it was only when I was writing the book that I came across something in Bernard Susser’s archive to that effect. So how interesting to have had a personal link. There were notable figures in the Plymouth Jewish community. I’ve noted two of them there, Menasseh Masseh Lopes, son of the rich sugar plantation owner. So he was a member of Plymouth, became an MP and bought a number of manors in Devon. Very, very wealthy. Leon Solomon, I should think some of you’re thinking of a, “Yes, what’s he famous for?” Well he eventually, he was very generous to the Plymouth community and paid for various renovation works. But, why am I mentioning him? He emigrated, as I’ve put there to America, changed his name to Simpson and of course it’s his grandson that goes on to be the first husband of Wallace. Well no, the second husband, sorry, of Wallace Simpson who later marries the Duke of Windsor, Edward VII. So yeah, there’s a link to Plymouth there. Next slide, please. Some very prominent artists in Plymouth, including Solomon Alexander Hart, as I’ve put there, the first Jew to be admitted to the Royal Academy. Abraham Daniel, that’s one of his pieces there.

And Robert Lenkiewicz, I’m fascinated by his work. Next slide, please. Because there are a number of paintings which survived, which I understand are very valuable now. Robert Lenkiewicz painted a number of murals which are absolutely huge, that are several feet high. I don’t want to guess how, a hundred foot high mural in Plymouth. Back one please, yeah. And he used some of the members of the Jewish community in Plymouth as the figures for his murals. And he’s not dissimilar to the art of Lucian Freud. And here you can see on the right, he was incredibly controversial. I remember as a child in the 70s, he was incredibly controversial because he would paint a tramp and it was kind of almost unheard of. And when the tramp, I dunno the tramp, we’ve never found out his name. But when the tramp finally died, he donated his body to Lenkiewicz and Lenkiewicz painted him a number of times. Lenkiewicz, incredibly controversial from an ultra-orthodox community in Stanford Hill in London. He left, came to Plymouth, he’s now passed away. But at one point he actually faked his own death and people believed it actually, he managed to fake his own death to see what people would write about him. A very off the wall controversial painter, but I absolutely love his art. Next slide, please. And we’re rattling through now. So professions, by the late 1880s, we have a change. We’ve got Polish Jews arriving from the pogroms of the 1880s. And by now they ensure that the community can become viable.

And there’s decline in the Exeter Jewish community for a short time. And Plymouth really becomes, as I put there, the only viable community in the southwest. And it continues to have its navy agents, shopkeepers and silversmiths. But in terms of politics, Plymouth is really significant because just, I’m pulling out some family members. The Fredman family become very influential and important in the political landscape of Plymouth. Alderman Myer Fredman, who was actually JP becomes the first mayor of Devonport in 1911, the first Jew to do so. Arthur Goldberg, the Goldberg family, which hail from Plymouth. Arthur Goldberg became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Plymouth. And then you have figures like Dr. Greenhaus who becomes an eminent doctor in the area who worked on a number of high profile police cases, in particular murder cases. So the contribution to the Jewish community is not an insular community in Plymouth. It contributed in a big way to the political life, to civilian life. A huge contribution. Next, please. And I will wrap up in the next six or seven minutes. Next slide, please. We’re going to turn now to Exeter. Exeter, on the heels, one back please. On the heels of, thank you so much, Lauren. The second, on the heel of Plymouth, you know, not to be outdone, it’s the second oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in the English speaking world.

Again, listed. You can see a contemporary photograph of it on the right there. It’s sort of hidden away from the main thoroughfare, again because of concerns over anti-Semitism. Sadly, the Jewish community in Exeter in recent decades has been subject to some pretty horrific anti-Semitic activities, including a couple of fire bombings of the synagogue. The synagogue has survived. Again, a very unique, unusual ark there. Beautiful in its own right, different from Plymouth, but beautiful. Next slide, please. Again, Jews arriving in Exeter around 1720s. We do see a handful of Sephardi Jewish families in Exeter, but largely its history is one of Ashkenazi coming from primarily Germany and Eastern Europe, but exquisite, exquisite synagogue there. And we’ve talked about the mediaeval Jewish community. I won’t touch on that further, but you can read more on in my book on the Jews of Exeter. We do have evidence that there was a place of worship in Exeter 1734, but this synagogue was built in 1763, so a year after Plymouth. And there’s often locally that kind of friendly rivalry between the two communities about their age. The Ezekiel family, again, some of you are probably related to the Ezekiel family, were highly skilled silversmiths. Exeter was not founded by poor, itinerant peddlers and hawkers. Again, that’s the sort of myth that sometimes attaches itself to this community. But the Ezekiel family. Next slide, please. I’m hoping we’ve got quite a rare photograph of the synagogue coming up. No, could we move on one?

I won’t focus, so thank you, could we move on, please to the next slide. And the synagogue is in Synagogue Place. I think it’s the only place in England that’s been named Synagogue Place. And on the left there, you can see a beautiful portico, a doorway. Still as it is restored, still as it is today. On the right there, you can see a very old photograph of the synagogue. And the synagogue is the one with a lady stood in the doorway. And these were part of the slums of Exeter at the time. And the synagogue was originally a one story building. Then as we can see here in this incredibly rare photograph, it was a three story building. Only could seat around 30 in the early days. Now Grade II listed. Built as I said in 1763 on land behind the church, the major church, Mary Arches Church. Not that far, actually, from the cathedral in Exeter, Exeter Cathedral. Next slide, please. Its beautiful ark still in use. Probably comes from Germany, probably like Plymouth was brought in stages. It was originally free standing on the north wall and then moved. And I showed this picture on the left. These are drawings by Eddie Sinclair. And she was a conservationist who recently worked, in the last decade or so, with Historic England and Heritage Funding to restore this ark, which at one point was in danger of collapse from some subsidence.

And when she very carefully peeled back the layers, because this ark had been painted over the generations in, well, she thought it was horrific. This gaudy gold, she found these amazing colours that you can see in her drawing on the left. And the synagogue used blue. And as she concluded, blue was one of the most expensive colours paint that was available. And it highlights something of status of the community at that time. Incredibly rare to have used that blue paint alongside the red. Next, please. I’m coming to my last few slides before we wrap up. And I do apologise. It’s such a big history today that we probably won’t, well we won’t have time for questions. But again, these communities have the most incredible silver, which has survived, these beautiful rimmomim made by a Jewish silversmith, Simon Harris of Plymouth Dock. But these belonged to the Jewish community in Exeter. They are inscribed with the names of 17 young women, they’re described as maidens of the shul. These in particular date to 1811. And they were funded from what we understand by the women of the community, when I just love that story. Next slide, please. We’re coming to the last part of the talk. Exeter as with the other communities, has its own cemetery.

The lease was granted as I’ve put there in 1757. So again before the purpose-built synagogue was established. And it’s been extended several times. I have, along with Bernard Susser, catalogued each of these cemeteries to, because these transcripts wouldn’t survive otherwise. A lot of the detail on the tombstone, some of these photographs were taken in the 1990s by myself. The tombstones are now illegible. Next slide, please. We’ve got something on the Ezekiel’s. Yeah. Here we’ve got these wonderful portraits of the Ezekiel’s that survived. Abraham Ezekiel highly prized as a silversmith engraver and optician. Next slide, please, will give you one of his cards. Has quite an elaborate, yeah, and this again survives in the Jewish Museum in London. Next slide, please. I’m going to come soon to my rounding comments. So next slide, please. Yeah, this is an incredibly rare photograph and it was originally, I took it, I copied it from the Jewish Chronicle archives when they were in Furnival Street and most of the stuff was supposed to be digitised. There was an article about the Exeter community in the Jewish Chronicle and this shows a rare photograph of the damage because it was hit in the blitz in the Second World War. And now we can’t find the original. This is the only that survived in my, sort of, archive at my end. And I think it is important, and this is the point I want to make about the heritage. Next slide, please. Yes, the Jewish communities are living communities today, but I think it is important.

Okay, we’ll go back one, I think we’ve lost the last slide. No, there we are. It is important of course for the communities, for prayer, for living, for education, but I also believe passionately in the heritage. That the heritage should survive, whether it’s donated to the Jewish museum, whether it survives, as does the Susser archive, which we don’t have time to talk about today, but was rescued from bags just dumped outside the synagogue by the late widow of Bernard’s Susser after he passed away. The whole archive very nearly disappeared. And so for me, I think it’s terribly important that wherever our communities are, we can save the historic documentation. Because without that history, we don’t really understand as communities where we’ve come from necessarily. And I think it is important because, not only for the Jewish community, but as an educational tool for the non-Jewish community. And that’s a large part of the work as a non-Jew I’ve been doing, is to keep this heritage alive. And finally to say there is now a worshipping community in Cornwall, the Kernow community. There is a community also well operating out of Truro, but very tiny communities still in Devon and Cornwall. Sorry, not Cornwall, in Devon, in Plymouth and Exeter. Exeter being fairly, well diverse from lots of different backgrounds. Plymouth still being attached to United Synagogue, largely independent. But, I worry about the future of these communities.

So, maybe we can just keep an eye, if you have links to the communities, we can ensure that this precious heritage is saved. And I wonder, going back to the Penzance Jewish community, I wonder if the Penzance Synagogue could ever again become a synagogue, maybe even turned into cultural centre to fight antisemitism and for education. But these precious gems, maybe we can make a pledge to ensure that they don’t disappear. Thank you. I hope you’ve enjoyed that. And I do apologise that we can’t take questions today. I’ll put my video back on. We haven’t lost the PowerPoint. So, thank you so much and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Lauren, thank you for today.