Anes, Dunstan [formerly Gonsalvo Anes; alias Gonzalo Jorge] (c. 1520–1594), merchant, was born in Portugal as Gonsalvo, the second son of a merchant, Jorge Anes (d. in or before 1540), and his wife, Elizabeth Rodrigues (b. 1481, d. after 1568)...
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Bagrit, Sir Leon (1902–1979), industrialist, was born on 13 March 1902 in Kiev, Ukraine, the younger son and second of three children of Manuel Bagrit, jewellery designer and jeweller, and his wife, Rachel Yousopovich. The family left Russia when he was a small child and arrived in ...
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Barnato, Barnett Isaacs [Barney] (1852–1897), diamond merchant and financier, born on 5 July 1852 at Aldgate, London, was the second son of the five children of Isaac Isaacs, shopkeeper, and Leah Isaacs (said to be related to the master of the rolls, Sir George Jessel...
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Maker: Warren
Barnett Isaacs Barnato (1852–1897) by Warren © National Portrait Gallery, London
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A. E. Watkin
revised by Christine Clark
Baron, Bernhard (1850–1929), tobacco manufacturer and philanthropist, was born on 5 December 1850 in the Russian town of Brest Litovsk. His parents were both Jewish and he was probably of French descent. In 1867 he emigrated to New York, where he worked in a tobacco factory, sleeping at night in the tobacco sheds; with tobacco lent to him by one of the foremen, he started to manufacture handmade cigarettes. He then moved to ...
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Sir Jacob Behrens (1806–1889) by Ernest Leopold Sichel Bradford Art Galleries and Museums
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D. T. Jenkins
Behrens, Sir Jacob (1806–1889), textile merchant, was born on 20 November 1806, one of the sons of Nathan Behrens (d. 1842), a Jewish merchant, and Clara Hahn, daughter of a Hamburg silk merchant, at Pyrmont, in the small German principality of Waldeck...
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David Feldman
Bloom, Solomon [Sidney] (1921–2003), restaurateur, was born on 1 January 1921 at 58 Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London, the son of Morris Bloom (d. 1951), and his wife, Becky, née Krisman. His father had arrived in London from Lithuania eleven years earlier. A latecomer who managed to enter the country despite the impact of the 1905 ...
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Brampton, Sir Edward [Duarte Brandão] (c. 1440–1508), soldier and merchant, was born in Lisbon c.1440, reputedly the illegitimate son of Rui Barba and the wife of a Jewish blacksmith. About 1468 he travelled to England and converted to Christianity. As was usual in such cases, the ...
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Andrew Alexander
Burton, Sir Montague Maurice [formerly Meshe David Osinsky] (1885–1952), clothing manufacturer and retailer, was born on 15 August 1885 in the town of Kurkel, Kovno province, Russia (now Lithuania), the only son of Chaim Judah Osinsky (b. 1825), bookseller, and his wife, ...
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Maker: unknown photographer
Sir Montague Maurice Burton (1885–1952) by unknown photographer © reserved; Manchester University Press; photograph National Portrait Gallery, London
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Carvajal, Antonio Fernandez (d. 1659), merchant, was probably born in Portugal, for in his youth he seems to have lived in Fundão. He may have fled to Spain at some time, and apparently owned land in the Canary Islands. By the early 1630s he was in ...
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P. M. Oppenheimer
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Cohen, Sir John Edward [Jack] [formerly Jacob Edward Kohen] (1898–1979), grocer and creator of Tesco stores, was born in the City of London on 6 October 1898, the fifth of six children and the second of three sons of Avroam Kohen, an immigrant Polish-Jewish tailor, and his first wife, ...
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Sir Robert Waley Cohen (1877–1952) by Bassano, 1946 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Cohen, Sir Robert Waley (1877–1952), oil industrialist, was born in London on 8 September 1877, the second son of Nathaniel Louis Cohen, a leading figure in the City, and his wife, Julia Matilda Cohen (1853–1917), daughter of Jacob Waley (1818–1873). A sister of ...
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Norma Perry
Costa, Anthony Moses da (1667x9–1747), merchant, the eldest son of Alvaro Jacob da Costa (1646–1716), also a merchant, and Leonor Mendes Gutiérres (1651–1727), was born in Budge Row, in the City of London. He was baptized on 12 January 1679 at St Antholin, Budge Row...
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Richard Davenport-Hines
Cotton, Jack (1903–1964), property developer, was born at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 1 January 1903, the third son of Benjamin Marcus Cotton and his wife, Caroline Josephine Rudelsheim. His father was an import–export merchant with a flourishing trade in silver plate cutlery to South Africa...
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Czarnikow, (Julius) Caesar (1838–1909), sugar broker, was born at Sondershausen, Germany, the third son in a family of seven sons and two daughters of Moritz Czarnikow (b. 1795), agent and commissioner of commerce to the prince of Sondershausen, and of his wife, ...
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D. C. Coleman
Dreyfus, Henry [Henri] (1882–1944), industrialist, was born in January 1882 into a Jewish family in Switzerland; he was the son of Abraham Dreyfus. Trained as a chemist, he held a doctorate of the University of Basel. In 1912, in conjunction with his elder brother, ...
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Ellis, Sir Barrow Helbert (1823–1887), East India Company servant, was born in London on 24 January 1823, the son of S. Helbert Ellis, treasurer of the Great Synagogue, Duke's Place, London, and his wife, Fanny, daughter of Samuel Lyons de Symons. The family name was originally ...
