Hugh Stannus Stannus, consulting physician and specialist in tropical diseases was appointed Medical Officer to the King's African Rifles in British Central Africa [Malawi], in 1905 and carried out research into various tropical diseases particularly pellagra and sleeping sickness. He made an intense study of anthropology and ethnology and published a monograph on the Wa-Yao people. He was elected FRCP in 1931. In 1914 he became principal medical officer of the Nyasa-Rhodesian forces operating in Southern German East Africa [Tanganiyka (Tanzania)].
Mary Frances Lucas was born in 1885, the daughter of G J Lucas. She was educated at Eversley, Folkestone and the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women, graduating MB, BS 1911 and DSc 1938. She was appointed Lecturer in Embryology and Senior Demonstrator in Anatomy at the School in 1914; and became Reader and Head of Department in 1919. She was Professor of Anatomy from 1924-1951; Vice-Dean 1926-1929; Acting Dean 1939-1943; and President from 1957 until her death. She was appointed Emeritus Professor of the University of London, 1951; President of the Medical Women's Federation, 1946-1948 and President of the Anatomical Society, 1949-1951. She married Richard Keene, in 1916 and adopted the surname Lucas Keene in 1917. She died in 1977.
Publications: Practical Anatomy, (1932) Anatomy for Dental Students, (1934);
Cecil Symons (1921-1987) was a physician and cardiologist at the Royal Free Hospital. In 1946 he was appointed Casualty Medical Officer at Hampstead General Hospital. He became Senior Medical Registrar at Hampstead General in 1951, and First Assistant to the Cardiac Department at the Royal Free in 1956. In 1961 he was appointed Consultant Physician at New En Hospital, and in 1968 he also became Consultant Physician and Cardiologist at the Royal Free. On his retirement in 1987 he became Honorary Consultant Physician and Cardiologist, but died a few days later. He is best remembered for his wide-ranging interests, and his activities in the fields of art and collecting of antique medical equipment. He was involved in many extra-mural activites both within the hospital and the local community, and instituted the Works of Art committee and the annual Marsden lecture. He also commissioned the artist Peter Jones in 1972 to make a series of pictorial representations of the old hospitals which were to be demolished to make way for the building of the new Royal Free. These are now held in the Archives Centre, and known as the Symons Bequest.
William Marsden was born in Sheffield in August 1796. He moved to London, 1816, and became apprentice to Mr Dale, a surgeon practicing in Holborn. He trained at the Anatomical School of Joshua Brookes in Blenheim Street, and at St Bartholomew's Hospital under John Abernethy. In 1820 he married Elizabeth-Ann Bishop and also became a member of the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers. He obtained membership of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1827. His inability later in that year to obtain hospital treatment for an 18 year old girl, whom he found on the steps of St Andrew's Church, Holborn, almost dead of disease and starvation, turned his attention to the question of hospital relief. At that time treatment was only given to patients with a governor's letter. In 1828 he set up a small dispensary, the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Cure of Malignant Diseases, in Greville Street, Hatton Garden. The Institution initially met with great opposition, but in 1832 its value became widely recognised as it alone, of all the London hospitals, received cholera patients. After the epidemic the in-patient beds remained, and the hospital changed its name to the London Free Hospital. In 1842 the hospital moved to the Light Horse Volunteers Barracks in Gray's Inn Road. Marsden was senior surgeon of the hospital, and in 1838 he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Erlangen. In 1846 Elizabeth-Ann Marsden died of cancer, and in 1851 Marsden opened a small house in Cannon Row, Westminster, for patients suffering from cancer. Within 10 years the institution moved to Brompton, and became known as the Cancer Hospital, of which Marsden was also the senior surgeon (The Hospital was renamed the Royal Marsden in 1954). In 1846 he married Elizabeth Abbott, daughter of Frances Abbott, a solicitor and member of the RFH Committee of Mamagement. Marsden died of bronchitis in 1867.
Alexander Edwin Marsden was born on 22 Sept 1832, the son of William and Elizabeth-Ann Marsden. He was educated at Wimbledon School and King's College London. He became a licenciate of the Society of Apothecaries, 1853; and MRCS 1854;. He joined the army in 1854 as staff assistant surgeon, and served in the Crimean War. On his return to Britain he was appointed surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, where he was also curator of the museum and general superintendent. At the Cancer Hospital he was surgeon, 1853-1884, and consulting surgeon, 1884-1902. He married his cousin Catherine Marsden in 1856. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine by the University of St Andrews, 1862; and was elected FRCS, 1868. In 1898 he was elected Master of the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers. He died 2 July 1902.
The Camden Society was founded on 15 Mar 1838, at the home of John Bowyer Nichols, parliamentary printer, and proprietor of Gentleman's Magazine, during a meeting presided over by Thomas Amyot, secretary of the Slave Compensation Commission and Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries. Others present at this first meeting included John Bruce, John Payne Collier, Rev Joseph Hunter, historian and PRO staff member; Sir Frederick Madden, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, Thomas Stapleton, genealogist, Thomas Wright, editor of early texts.
The meeting resolved to found a society for the publication of early historical and literary remains, to be called the Camden Society. (Not to be confused with the Cambridge Camden Society founded in 1839, and from 1846 known as the Ecclesiological Society). The Society was to be governed by a President and a Council of twelve members and including a Treasurer and Secretary. Membership of the Society was by annual subscription of £1, and an annual meeting was to be held on the 2 May - the birthday of William Camden (1551-1623, historian and antiquary). It was proposed to publish unedited manuscripts as well as republish selected scarce printed books. Copies of the publications were to be sent to every member and surplus stock to be offered publicly. The Society also determined that distinct works be published separately, allowing the individual to bind them in their own chosen arrangement.
At the first meeting of the new Society on 22 March 1839, a Council was elected, with Lord Francis Egerton as President, John Bruce as Treasurer and Thomas Wright as Secretary. Membersip increased rapidly, and in less than a month the Council determined to print 500 copies of and edition of Bruce's Historie of the arrivall of Edward IV in England, and Payne Collier's edition of Bishop Bale's Kynge Johan. By July of the same year, the membership list was close to 500. This same year it was proposed that Queen Victoria should be asked to be Patron. Prince Albert joined the Society in 1843 and remained a member till his death in 1861.
The first general meeting, 2 May 1839, raised the membership limit to 1000, which was in increased to 1250 by Mar 1840. Candidates even had to wait until death or resignation caused vacancies. However, this pressure seems to have slackened by about 1845, and by 1851, only 750 copies of editions were being printed, and membership afterward dropped to between 300-400.
The rules of the Society agreed in 1839, also enlarged the scope of the Society so as to permit the printing of translations, and provided for the appointment of a director who could act as vice-president.
The business of the Council consisted mainly of membership approval, selection of works for publication and copyright. In Jun 1838 decided to send copies to the five great libraries, and Mar 1839 decision that all publication should be entered at Stationers' hall. Another issue the council faces was the responsibility of the Society for the opinions of its editors, and in May 1839, the ruled that the Council must see proofs of each work issued, especially the prefaces.
A number of libraries were admitted as members of the Society and obtained a set of publications, the first being the London Library in 1842, followed by the Chetham Library, Manchester, in 1850, the Marylebone Public Library in 1854, and the Westminster Public Library in 1857.
The society played a part in the agitation, 1848-1869, to secure access for literary inquirers to early wills in courts and district registries, and opposed the imposition of fees for literary searches among wills. In 1865, it successfully advocated the use of photography for making facsimile copies of wills.
The Camden Society's outstanding contribution is Albert Way's edition of Promptorium parvulorum one of the earliest works projected by the Society but only completed in 1865. Other publications were undertaken jointly with the Early English Text Society (founded 1864). The Camden Society was facing financial difficulties by the early 1880s, exacerbated by a failed project to compile a general index to the first 100 volumes that it had printed. The Society by then had only 183 paying members. By 1892, the membership had risen slightly to 237 subscribers, but by 1994 was £95 in arrears from subscribers which could not be recovered.
In 1896 it was suggested that the Society amalgamate with the Royal Historical Society, and that united membership of the two societies would be large enough to support the annual publication of two Camden volumes and one of the RHS proceedings. A joint committee of the two societies appointed to consider this proposal reported favourably in 11 Mar 1896. In December of the same year, the Society formally adopted, and practical arrangements made at the final Council meeting on 28 Apr 1897.
Geoffrey Rudolph Elton (Ehrenberg) was born in Germany in 1921, the son of Victor Leopold Ehrenberg and his wife Eva Sommer. The family emigrated to England in 1939. Elton was educated at the University of London and began teaching at Cambridge in 1949, the same year he was awarded PhD. He became Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, 1954, Professor of Constitutional History at Cambridge, 1967-1983 and Regius Professor of Modern History from 1983-1988.
Elton was President of the Royal Historical Society, 1972-1976. As a scholar of Tudor administrative history, Elton reassessed historical conceptions of the Tudor era. He was Knighted in 1986, and died 3 Dec 1994.
Publications include The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953); England under the Tudors (1955), The Tudor Constitution (1960), Reformation Europe (1963), Reform and Renewal (1973), Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1558 (1977), The Parliament of England 1559-1581 (1986), and The English (1992).
This collection of papers documents antisemitism in various forms in South Africa mostly during the 1930s.
Eric Conrad was a refugee from Vienna, a lawyer, who later became a chartered acountant. He joined the Pioneer Corps and subsequently transferred to the Intelligence Corps. He was awarded the American Bronze Star for causing the surrender of German troops at Cherbourg. On the surrender of Hamburg, 5 May 1945, he became an announcer on Hamburg radio and was then transferred to the music department which he helped to restart.
The industrial clothing company, Neumann and Mendel, was founded in early 1889 by Emil Neumann and Carl Mendel, the latter dying shortly afterwards, the former retaining sole ownership. At the beginning of the 1890s a sister company was founded at Rhendt which later moved to Mönchengladbach. In 1908 the Essen firm moved to new, larger premises in the same city. By 1914, the 25th Jubilee year, the company employed 1100 people. By 1929, the year of the 40th Jubilee, the firm employed about half as many. After Emil Neumann's death in 1923, his son Ludwig became the sole owner. In accordance with the Nazi policy of 'Aryanisation' the company was forcibly sold to Joseph Herbring, a non-Jew in October 1938.
After the war Ludwig Neumann returned to Germany to reclaim what was rightfully his. The Essen branch of the firm along with most of Essen had been completely destroyed in the bombing during the war. He managed to secure a loan from his sister's frozen German bank account in order to re-establish the business in Germany in 1950. The business had fallen into difficulties and by 1949 was no longer functioning. Ludwig Neumann managed to obtain a work permit and remained for approximately 4 years in Mönchengladbach building up the company once more. It is not clear what the fate of the company was after Ludwig's attempts to rejuvenate it. A letter dated September 1954, shortly after the death of his mother, Dina Neumann, states that they were trying to find a buyer for the machinery. It is probable therefore that the company was broken up and its assets sold off at about this time.
Emil Neumann, born in Hammerstein Provinz, West Prussia in 1861 and living in Essen at the time of his marriage in 1892, married Dina Stern from Felsberg, Hessen, born in 1868. Louis Stern, her brother also worked for the company. He died in 1932. Emil and Dina had two children, Ludwig (aka Lutz) born in 1896 and Luise (aka Liesel, aka Louise) born in 1893. Having served and been wounded during the First World War (for which he was decorated), he studied at the Technical Institute for Textile Industries, Württemberg, 1919-1920, and became the sole owner of the company Neumann and Mendel and manager of the associated export firm of Schrey and Co in 1923 after the death of his father. Luise worked as a nurse in the Friedrich Krupp Krankenhaus, Essen, throughout most of the war. In 1919 she married Richard Elkisch, a Jewish businessman born in Berlin. Hardly anything is known about the latter. Luise was forced to leave her Berlin flat, Kaiseralle 203, in 1938.
In 1938, having been forced to sell the company, Ludwig was interned in Dachau for a couple of months, and released on the understanding that he would leave the country immediately. On his arrival in Great Britain after a period of internment as an enemy alien, he held a number of posts as a production manager in the clothing industry. He returned to Germany in 1950 to resume the management of the family business. Luise and her mother came over to Britain at about the same time and the family settled in Birkenhead where they remained. Dina died in 1954, Ludwig in 1970 and Luise in the 1980s.
Dr Robert Michaelis was born in 1903 in Berlin. Michaelis was of Jewish origin and emigrated to Shanghai in 1939, becoming president of the organisation of emigrant lawyers. He worked in a legal capacity; wrote articles on the rights of emigrants in Shanghai and returned to Germany in 1948 where he became Senatpräsident for Mainz.
Michaelis had been interested in the Dreyfus affair for many years and on retirement in 1957, he devoted much of his time to researching the legal aspects of the case against Dreyfus. The Dreyfus affair was an antisemitic scandal which divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer in the French Army was found guilty of treason for passing military secrets to the German embassy in Paris. Drefus was suspected for many reasons including his Jewish heritage. Michaelis died in Mainz in 1973.
Bernhard Baer, born in Berlin in 1905, escaped Nazi persecution by travelling to England in 1938; worked as an expert in colour printing and a publisher of artists' graphic work and died 1983.
Erich Kaiser who wrote under the pseudonym Emil Grant, was born in Berlin in 1905 and emigrated to Paris in 1933 where he worked as a journalist for a number of German emigré newspapers including Paris Tageblatt, Paris Tageszeitung, Vorwärts, and Weltbühne. He was brought to Albi, Camp des Prestateurs where he committed suicide, 1 Sep 1940.
The Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft (HAPAG) known as Hamburg-Amerika Linie, was an enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany in 1847 for shipping across the Atlantic Ocean. It was the largest shipping company in German, and at times the world's largest shipping company, serving the market created by the German immigration to the United States.
The collection consists of letters between Frieda Morris' grandmother and father in Poland and her brother and uncle in London. 'M Shire' was Frieda Morris' father's uncle, a staunch Zionist, who attended the first ever Zionist Congress and named his first son Theodor Herzl. Frieda's father came to Great Britain in 1902, and eventually with the help of his uncle Mendel Myer, brought over the rest of the family.
On 10 November 1941, Jews began to be transported from Düsseldorf to Minsk -altogether 5,895 Jews being deported, most of them between Autumn 1941 and Summer 1942. The other destinations for Jews were Theresienstadt, Riga, Litzmannstadt and Izbica. All Jews males under the age of 65 years of age and women under 60 came into consideration and individuals concerned received an 'evacuation order' from the Gestapo, by registered mail, informing them to report one day before 'evacuation'.
Those transported would be subject to special regulations for the duration of transport. Assets were confiscated, though each individual could take a suitcase of belongings with them. In addition they had to fill out an inventory of assets. This 'declaration of assets' ('Vermögenserklärung') consisted of 8 pages and had to be filled out separately for each person. These forms required information concerning bank accounts details, cash and securities, insurances, properties, other receivables, business shares, and total assets.
Reichsführer SS was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, became the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel (SS). Reichsführer SS was both a title and a rank. The title of Reichsführer was first created in 1926 by Joseph Berchtold. Berchtold's predecessor, Julius Schreck, never referred to himself as Reichsführer but the title was retroactively applied to him in later years.
In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became Reichsführer-SS and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank. This set the precedent for the Commanding General of the SS to be called Reichsführer-SS. In 1934, Himmler's title became an actual rank after the Night of the Long Knives and from that point on, Reichsführer-SS became the highest rank of the SS and was considered the equivalent of a Generalfeldmarschall in the German Army.
There is no indication as to which office this document emanated from or who was responsible for its creation.
The Hebrew Committee of National Liberation was launched in May 1944. Its origins were in the Emergency Committee to save the Jewish People of Europe, which itself had been formed at an Emergency Conference in July 1943. The founder was Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson). The new committee's aims were to continue to agitate for the rescue of Jews in Europe and to struggle against the British in Palestine. It aspired to be something of an alternative to the Jewish Agency.
Wolfgang Loewy, who described himself as a Jew by religion and by origin half-Jewish and half-Christian, left Berlin with his first wife and ended up in an internment camp in Bombay. His brother, Werner, wife and parents went to Shanghai, where they stayed until after the war, after which they went to live in Los Angeles. Wolfgang came to Great Britain after the war.
The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement is a division from the Seventh-day Adventist Church created by disagreement over proper Sabbath observance and military service during World War One.
A case took place at a special court in Mannheim, Hesse, Germany in 1937 against Seventh Day Adventists Reformists, who took part in activities contrary to the provision set out in an act to ban the organisation on 30 May 1936.
Little is known about Alfred Pavel Peres save for the fact that he was an international lawyer and that he helped Eduard Benes get visas for political liberals. He was a member of the Deutsch-demokratischen Freiheitspartei.
The Dunera, a military transport ship, transported over 2000 internees from the UK to Australia in 1940 and was used to transport German and Austrian immigrants to Australia during this period.
Mr and Mrs Elsztajn were Polish Jews living in Belgium. They were arrested in 1943 and transported to Malines. Mrs Elsztajn describes how people feared Commandant Schmidt of Malines and Breendonck. They were taken to Auschwitz where she was experimented on by Dr Carl Clauberg and with him were doctors Goebbels, Weber, Wirtz and Samuel, a German Jew, who tried his best for them, but was killed before Auschwitz was evacuated because he knew the secrets of Block 10 which housed women used in experiments. On 18 January 1945 they were evacuated from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück on foot in the extreme cold, then to Malchow towards Leipzig-Taucha on trains under continuous bombardment. On 25 April 1945 they were liberated by the Americans and Mrs Elsztajn was repatriated by plane to Belgium where she was reunited with her daughter.
Herta Ningo, a German Jew born in Berlin in 1911, arrived in Great Britain shortly after 11 July 1939 (the date she left Hamburg according to her passport). She was the daughter of Max Ningo a businessman who died in 1930, and Meta née Rewald, who, according to the memorial book for Berlin Jews who died during the Holocaust, committed suicide, 15 Jan 1942. The only correspondence between mother and daughter is a Red Cross telegram in which Meta responds on 12 Jan 1941.
Arthur Rewald was the brother of Meta Ningo, Herta's mother. Arthur Rewald married Elsa Salzmann in 1933.
Joachim Prinz was born in Burchartsdorf, Germany, in 1902, and ordained by the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary in 1925. In 1926 he became rabbi of the Berlin Jewish community. His adherence to the Zionist movement brought him into conflict with the leaders of the Berlin Jewish community. Prinz continually attacked Nazism from his pulpit, even after Hitler came to power, and was arrested several times by the Gestapo. In 1937 he held his last meeting with his congregation before emigrating to the US. The meeting was spied on by Adolf Eichmann, who reported to the Gestapo that Prinz's plan to emigrate proved that an international Jewish conspiracy had New York as a headquarters. Prinz was subsequently arrested by the Gestapo and expelled from Germany. In 1939 he was appointed rabbi at Temple B'nai Abraham, Newark, New Jersey.
The National Socialists made use of Nuremberg's heritage as the 'Treasure Chest of the German Empire' and in 1927, started holding their party rallies here. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Adolf Hitler made Nuremberg the 'City of the Party Rallies'. Monumental structures, based on plans by Albert Speer, were erected in the Volkspark Dutzendteich, in the south eastern city districts. Until today these bear testimony to the Third Reich's megalomaniacal pretensions. Here, Julius Streicher, the 'Frankenführer' (Franconian Führer), spread his anti-Semitic hate slogans. It was also in this city that the Nazis proclaimed their inhumane 'Nuremberg Racial Laws' in 1935. In Nuremberg more people than anywhere else were killed during the pogrom night of November 9/10, 1938. Nuremberg's Lord Mayor, National Socialist Willy Liebel, proclaimed 'with pride' that 26 Jews had not survived the 'Reichskristallnacht'.
The organisation Neues Leben was a club devoted to nudism, founded February 1930. The movement had been non-political but by the end of March 1933, following difficulties, avowed publicly their support for Hitler. A meeting adopted a change of name to Bund fuer aufartende Lebensfuehrung und Nordische Sittenklarheit (League for racially pure lifestyle and nordic moral clarity), 19 July 1933.
Rabbi Dr F Steckelmacher came from Dürkheim, Württemberg, Germany. Having experienced the Nazis' rise to power and later the infamous nationwide pogrom of 9 November 1938, he was to spend time in various concentration camps and slave labour camps in France.
The Jewish Relief Unit was the operational arm of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad which was formed in 1943 by the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association and under the auspices and financial responsibility of the Central British Fund for Jewish Relief and Rehabilitation. Its main function was to provide support to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Displaced Persons camps mostly throughout Germany.
At the Second International Conference, which took place in Frankfurt in 1932, 60 Jewish delegates decided to organise a parallel Jewish conference for 1936. The president of the Jewish Conference was Dr M J Karpf, Director of the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work, New York. The central committee for the conference comprised leading figures in the social work field from all over the world. The secretariat was situated in Paris at the offices of the American Joint Distribution Committee. The Third International Conference on Social Work took place in London in July 1936 and was held in conjunction with the International Conference for Jewish Social Work.
Nothing is known about the author of the manuscript except that he was 82 at the time of writing.
Sachsenhausen concentration camp was established in 1936. It was located at the edge of Berlin, which gave it a prime position among the German concentration camps: the administrative centre of all concentration camps was located in Oranienburg, and Sachsenhausen became a training centre for SS officers (who would often be sent to oversee other camps afterwards). Executions took place at Sachsenhausen, especially those of Soviet POWs. While some Jews were executed at Sachsenhausen and many died there, the Jewish inmates of the camp were relocated to Auschwitz in 1942. Sachsenhausen was not designed as a death camp; instead, the systematic mass murder of Jews was conducted primarily in camps to the east.
Kurt Ferber was a resident of Berlin-Mariendorf; he is likely to have been employed by an iron manufacturing business, based in Berlin, although in what capacity it is not known. He refers to his many years service with the 'Spionagepolizei' (1252/1/8), it is not clear what that was, or when and where his service took place. He also refers to his time as a member of the border police in Silesia (1252/13). With regard to his family, the only information which emerges is that he had a cousin, who had been living in inner China for 10 years as a missionary (1252/1/11).
Olga Bruewitsch-Heuss, the other correspondent, was resident at the home of Major Runde, Berlin-Wilmersdorf Konstanzerstrasse 10 up until she moved to Bregenzerstrasse 15 flat 3 (1252/1/14, dated 22.10.1932) after a period of illness. The only information known about her family is that she had an uncle, General Giessler. Both correspondents were probably members of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, since this organisation is referred to in the correspondence and there is further material relating to it in the collection.
Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur was founded by Alfred Rosenberg on 19 December 1928 in Munich. The purpose of the league was to promote the beliefs of Hitler on the nature of German culture and to combat Jewish influence in German cultural life. In May 1933 it was recognized as the official cultural organisation of the NSDAP.
The Wiener Library began collecting eyewitness accounts of people who survived the Holocaust in 1957 as part of a project funded by the Claims Conference. The collection included contemporary documentation from the period. This set comprises accounts that were never included into the main series because they were incomplete.
The papers in this collection were used for the making of a BBC TV documentary series German History, 1919-1945. They are a set of copies deposited by Rudi Bamber, an interviewee for the programme, in which he describes his experiences of Kristallnacht and, in particular, the murder of his father.
The Leo Baeck Mens' Lodge was established in 1943. It was in this year that a group of 200 refugees from Nazi persecution met up in the First Lodge of England, and established 'Section 1943'. In 1945, this group split off from the First Lodge of England and became a Lodge in its own right. It was named after Rabbi Leo Baeck, a brave leader of German Jews during the Nazi period.
Leo Baeck arrived in London in July 1945 from Theresiënstadt. He was welcomed with open arms by his Brothers and agreed to become Honorary Life President of the new Lodge. Leo Baeck was not only an academic, but also a businessman and that is why he chaired the B'nai B'rith Rehabilitation Fund, which was supported by other German-speaking Lodges in New York, Israel, Switzerland, South Africa and Australia.
On 5th May 1946, the President of Leo Baeck Men's Lodge, Brother Schwab, inaugurated the Leo Baeck (London) Women's Lodge, which had more than 200 members.
The two Lodges always worked well together, particularly when it came to helping the needy. Various committees were set up, in particular the 'Charitable Trust', as well as social funds, donations, legacies and large scale investments. The 'Home Help Scheme', a social fund for needy people and the elderly, provides support for sick people and grants for university students.
In May 2006, the two Lodges merged and the Leo Baeck (London) Lodge became a mixed Lodge.
John Watkins was born in Woking, Surrey, training at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, before joining the Navy in 1941; after the war he studied politics at the London School of Economics where he was greatly influenced by reading Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. After graduation he studied for an MA at Yale University, before returned to the Government Department at LSE to take up a lectureship in political science, transferring to the Philosophy Department as Reader in 1958. He was promoted to Professor in 1966. Watkins retired in 1989 but continued regular attendance at seminars and was an associate for the LSE Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. Professor Watkins' publications include Hobbes's System of Ideas(1965), Science and Scepticism (1984)and Human Freedom after Darwin (1999) and numerous articles including 'Ideal types and Historical Explanation' (1953), 'Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences' (1957), 'Negative Utilitarianism' (1963), 'Confirmation, the Paradoxes and Positivism' (1964), 'Decision and Belief' (1967) and 'Imperfect Rationality' (1971).
Born 1956; educated City of Bath Boys' School and Heriot-Watt University; freelance interpreter and translator in four languages, 1979-1980; Vice-President, 1977-1979, and General Secretary, 1979-1981, International Federation of Liberal and Radical Youth; Founder Member, European Community Youth Forum, 1980; Member of Governing Board, European Youth Centre, 1980-1982; Administrator, Paisley College of Technology, 1980-1983; Head of Private Office of the Leader of the Liberal Party (David Steel), 1983-1987; Senior Press officer, TSB Group plc, 1987-1988; Public Affairs manager, 1988-1993, and Senior Public Affairs Manager, 1993-1994, HSBC Holdings plc; Liberal Democrat MEP for Somerset and North Devon, 1994-1999, and South West England, 1999-; Chairman, European Parliament Committee on Justice and Home Affairs, 1999-; Leader, UK Liberal Democratic Party European Parliament, 1999-. Publications: Transport policy in Scotland: time for a rethink (Printout Publications, Edinburgh, 1980); editor of The Liberals in the North-South dialogue (1980).
Beatrice and Sidney Webb pooled their respective talents into writing joint works on economic and social issues. They spent 25 years researching and writing their nine-volume English Local Government from the Reformation to the Municipal Corporations Act (Longmans and Co, 1906-1929, and produced other relevant works on the poor law and social relief. For a biographical history of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, see the description for the Passfield personal papers (Ref: Passfield).
The Webbs pooled their respective talents into writing joint works on economic and social issues. This partnership produced books such as The history of Trade Unionism, 1666-1920 (1894), Industrial democracy (1897), and Problems of Modern Industry (1898). Their work spread into areas such as historical and social research, educational and political reform and journalism, and much of what they produced altered the perceptions of economists and social historians, who had previously ignored the working classes. For a biographical history of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, see the description for the Passfield personal papers (Ref: Passfield).
The Woodcraft Folk broke away from the Kibbo Kift and founded their own group in 1925. They were mainly composed of the South London Co-operative Groups who withdrew from the Kibbo Kift Kindred in 1924. Although they continued with the same principles of woodcraft training and recapitulation they were a more democratic group with an international outlook. They were closely associated with the Co-operative Movement and a member of the International Falcon Movement and the Socialist Educational International. The group is still in existence.
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was formed in 1915, when a group of women met in an International Congress at The Hague to protest against World War One and to suggest ways of ending it and preventing future wars. The organisers of the Congress were prominent women in the International Suffrage Alliance who assembled more than a thousand women from both belligerent and neutral countries to work out the principles on which the war could be stopped and a permanent peace constructed. The Congress established an International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, which four years later became the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The organisation continues to function as an NGO, working for peace and disarmament, social and economic justice, and the full enjoyment of human rights. Its international headquarters are in Geneva and it has branches in around 50 countries.
Sir Frederic Wise, 1871-1928, was educated at Marlborough College and abroad. He entered banking in 1903 and later founded the stockbroking company of Wise, Speke and Co of Newcastle-on-Tyne. During World War One, he was Chairman of Volunteers and Military Representative for his county, and he also gave his services to National Service, the Food Ministry and the Treasury. In 1919, he was sent to Berlin to report of the financial position of Germany. He was also a financial advisor to Lord Byng's Committee of United Service Fund, a director of the Daily Express and a director of the Sudan Plantation Syndicate Ltd. He was Unionist MP for Ilford from 1920 and knighted in 1924.
The Women's Industrial Council was set up following a conference at Holborn Town Hall in November 1894, and merged with the Women's Trade Union Association, which Clementina Black had helped to form five years earlier. The Women's Industrial Council was incorporated as a non-profit-making organisation in 1910. Its main activities involved making investigations into women's work in order to improve their industrial conditions; monitoring parliamentary reports and legislation; educating industrial workers; work in the fields of unemployment and retraining; the publication of various reports and pamphlets, and the journal 'Women's Industrial News'; and reporting breaches of Factory and Public Health Acts.
No further information available at present.
The Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Conference of British Missionary Societies (CBMS), was founded in 1912 with a membership of more than 40 Protestant missionary societies. It grew out of the Continuation Committee established as a result of the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910, which aimed to encourage the foundation of national co-operative councils for mission. For many years the CBMS shared premises (acquired in 1918), Edinburgh House (in Belgravia, near Sloane Square, London), with the Continuation Committee, which became known as the International Missionary Council in 1921. The CBMS was not itself a missionary society, but its archive documents how home missionary organisations co-operated with contacts abroad, show the public face of missionary activity, and also offer evidence on contemporary social and political, as well as religious, events. It held an annual conference, and a standing committee (later council) met quarterly. There were also specialized committees. In 1977 the CBMS became a division of the British Council of Churches and it is now known as the Churches' Commission on Mission. For further information see J T Hardyman and R K Orchard, Two Minutes from Sloane Square: a Brief History of the Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland 1912-1977 (CBMS, London, 1977).
The origins of the London Missionary Society (LMS) lie in the late 18th century revival of Protestant Evangelism. A meeting of Independent Church leaders, Anglican and Presbyterian clergy and laymen, held in London in November 1794, established the aims of the Missionary Society - 'to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations'. The Missionary Society was formally established in September 1795 with a plan and constitution. This governed the establishment of a Board of Directors and the conduct of business, outline the powers of the Directors and the conduct of business, established an annual meeting of Members to be held in May, and defined the role of trustees. The Missionary Society was renamed the London Missionary Society in 1818. Although broadly interdenominational in scope, the Society was very much Congregationalist in both outlook and membership.
Mission activity started in the South Seas, with the first overseas mission to Tahiti in 1796. Missionary work expanded into North America and South Africa. Early mission activities also centred in areas of eastern and southern Europe including Russia, Greece and Malta. There was also an LMS 'mission to Jews' in London. However, during the 19th century, the main fields of mission activity for the LMS were China, South East Asia, India, the Pacific, Madagascar, Central Africa, Southern Africa, Australia and the Caribbean (including British Guiana, now Guyana). The LMS was not always successful in gaining a hold in the overseas mission field. Western missionaries were refused entry to China until after 1843, and in Madagascar, early missionary success was countered by a period of repression and religious intolerance lasting from 1836 to 1861, and which included the deaths of many local converts.
In terms of organisational structure, the LMS was governed by a Board of Directors. The workings of the Board were reorganised in 1810 when separate committees were appointed to oversee particular aspects of mission work, including the important foreign committees. The administrative structure of the LMS relied upon the work of salaried officials such as the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary, together with the workings of the various committees, including the Examinations Committee, which appointed missionaries to the field. Directors themselves were unpaid. The constitution of the LMS was revised in May 1870, as a direct result of financial pressures and the expansion of overseas mission work; the work of the Investigation Committee (1866) in turn led to a new administrative policy and the emphasis on the development of the self-governing and self-financing indigenous church. In 1966 the LMS merged with the Commonwealth Missionary Society, to form the Congregational Council for World Mission (CCWM), which in turn was restructured to create the Council for World Mission in 1977.
Further information on the history of the London Missionary Society can be found in the official histories: Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society 1795-1895 (2 volumes, Oxford University Press, London, 1899); Norman Goodall, A history of the London Missionary Society, 1895-1945 (Oxford University Press, London, 1954); Gales of change: responding to a shifting missionary context: the story of the London Missionary Society, 1945-1977, ed Bernard Thorogood (WCC, Geneva, 1994).
Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, 1775; apprenticed to a linen manufacturer in Leven; clerk in Dundee, 1794-1797; converted in the Haldane revival; studied at Hoxton Theological College for three years and entered the Congregational ministry; assistant in Newbury, Berkshire; minister at the first Scottish Congregational chapel in Aberdeen, 1804; married Jane Ross (d 1847), 1809; the work of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in South Africa was threatened with closure by the British authorities and as an LMS director went on a deputation, with the Rev John Campbell, to investigate, 1818; arrived in Cape Town, 1819; prevented by a war from travelling beyond the colony; found the mission stations neglected and colonial opinion against the missionaries' benign relations with indigenous people; believed the population to be oppressed by the settlers; appointed to remain in South Africa as LMS superintendent, 1820; his wife, Jane, was the de facto LMS administrative secretary there; Doctor of Divinity, Princetown College, New Jersey, USA, 1820; travelled extensively to inspect mission stations within and beyond the colony and to collect evidence supporting his theories, 1820-1826; pastor of the new Union chapel in Cape Town, 1822; campaigned for civil rights for the 'Cape Coloured' people, who formed a number of LMS congregations, 1823; visited Britain to lobby for their civil rights, 1826; the campaign achieved success and, following Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton's motion in the House of Commons, the Cape government was ordered to implement Philip's recommendations, 1828; Philip hoped that the Christian `mini-state' the Griqua people, aided by the LMS, had formed beyond the Cape Colony frontier would become a model for other indigenous peoples; while in Europe, solicited the Paris Evangelical Mission Society and the Rhenish Missionary Society to begin work in South Africa; corresponded with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to persuade them to come; advocated the idea that only Africans could convert Africa ('native agency'); returned to Africa to increased unpopularity from the white population, 1829; a libel suit by William Mackay, one of the officials accused by Philip in his Researches in South Africa, resulted in a unanimous verdict for Mackay, 1830; visited stations within and beyond the colony, 1832-1833; accompanied Coloured and Xhosa Christians to London to give evidence before a parliamentary committee and rouse public opinion against the Cape government, 1836; the committee's report supported his views, but his insistence that much of the responsibility for the war lay with the British authorities and white colonists brought hostility from much of the white population in the Cape, 1837; returned to South Africa, 1837-1838; travelled extensively to promote his scheme for establishment of independent states north and east of the colony, 1839, 1842; following a war (1846) Philip withdrew from public affairs, 1849; retired to Hankey; died, 1851; admired by the Coloured, Griqua, Sotho and Xhosa peoples, he was buried in the Coloured graveyard of a Coloured township. Publication: Researches in South Africa, illustrating the civil, moral and religious condition of the Native Tribes (2 volumes, 1828).
Born at Kidderminster, England, 1815; studied at Homerton College; appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to Africa; ordained at Leamington, 1838; married Anne Garden; sailed to South Africa, 1839; arrived at Cape Town; proceeded to Griqua Town; moved to Lekatlong and took charge of that station, 1840; moved to Borigelong, between Lekatlong and Taung, connected with the Kuruman mission, 1842; returned to work in Lekatlong, 1843; returned to England, his health having failed, 1856; appointed to open a mission among the Makololo, north of the Zambesi, 1858; arrived at Cape Town with his wife and four children and proceeded to Lekatlong; left Kuruman, 1859; arranged to travel with Roger Price and family to meet David Livingstone at Linyanti; after a difficult journey, arrived at Linyanti, where he, his wife and two children died of fever, 1860; the mission to the Makololo was abandoned.
Born at Redruth, Cornwall, England, 1857; studied at Spring Hill Theological College, Birmingham; appointed by the London Missionary Society (LMS) to central Africa and ordained as a Congregational minister, 1882; returned home with malaria, 1883; resumed study at Spring Hill; minister in Perth, Scotland, 1885-1887; married Charlotte Elizabeth Pountney (d 1940), 1885; engaged in deputation work for the LMS, 1887-1889; minister in Brighton, 1889-1892; appointed LMS missionary to the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana), 1892; went to Palapye to work among the Bamangwato of the Christian chief Khama (Kgama) III, 1893; accompanied Khama and other chiefs, Bathoen and Sebele, to England to help them oppose Cecil Rhodes's demands for administrative rights over the Protectorate, 1895; a member of the South African Native Races Committee, London, 1900-1908; removed with the Bamangwato tribe to Serowe, 1903; appointed first principal of the proposed LMS Central School for Bechuanaland, 1903; established the school, named the Tiger Kloof Native Institution, on a farm near Vryburg in the Cape Colony; local correspondent of the Royal Anthropological Society from 1905; gave evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Assembly of the Cape of Good Hope, 1908; resigned as principal of Tiger Kloof owing to ill-health, 1915; responsible for Molepolole mission, 1914-1917; visited Australia and New Zealand on an LMS deputation, 1917; returned to England via America, 1918; Professor of African Missions, Kennedy School of Missions of Hartford Seminary, Conneticut, USA, 1919-1931; elected Vice-President of the Fourth International Congregational Council, 1920; awarded honorary doctorate of sacred theology, Hartford Seminary, on his retirement, 1931; settled in England; Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; died in Birmingham, 1938. Publications include: Native Life on the Transvaal Border (1900); Tiger Kloof (1912); Race Problems in the New Africa (1923); The Soul of the Bantu: a Sympathetic Study of the Magico-Religious Practices and Beliefs of the Bantu Tribes of Africa (1928); Nature Worship and Taboo (1932).
Born in New Cross, London, 1904; member of a Congregationalist chapel in Purley, Surrey; trained at Carey Hall, Birmingham; appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary, dedicated at Purley, and sailed to north China, 1930; visited England, 1935; resigned for health reasons, 1936; worked in the Overseas Department of the LMS at Livingstone House, 1959-1963; died, 1964.