JCR-UK

Sheffields Jewry
in Victorian Britain

 

 

   
 


Extract from papers on
Provincial Jewry in Victorian Britain

Papers prepared by Dr. (later Prof.) Aubrey Newman for a conference at University College, London, convened on 6 July 1975 by the Jewish Historical Society of England
(Reproduced here with Prof. Newman's kind consent)

Paper first published on JCR-UK: 28 September 2016
Latest revision: 11 December 2016

SHEFFIELD (Yorkshire)

Published Data

A  -  In 1842 it was stated that the synagogue was founded in 1838 with ten families. In 1851 there were 20 Jewish families.

1874[a]

Synagogue , North Church Street. Founded in Figtree Lane 1850, present building erected, 1872. Has seat accommodation for 242 persons. 144 gentlemen's seats, 98 ladies' seats. Seat rental: gentlemen, from 15s. to £1.11s.6d. per annum; ladies, from 6s. to 12s. per annum. Income 1873, £190.12s.5d.; expenditure £175.18s.3d.

Schools, adjoining synagogue. Number of pupils, 1873: boys, 17; girls, 21. Income for year £35.16s. Expenditure for 1873, £92.10s.

Jewish Sisters Benevolent Society. Income for 1873 £35.4s.4d. Expenditure £31.3s.11½d

1901[b]

Jewish population 500 1900, 17 marriages.

Synagogue, North Church Street, founded 1866. 80 seatholders. Income 1897-8, £440.11s.5d. Expenditure £421.4s.11d.

Sheffield Jewish Literary and Philharmonic Society. (Founded 1887.)

New Hebrew Congregation, West Bar Green (founded 1872). Seatholders 100. Income and Expenditure, about £4 weekly.

Board of Guardians (founded 1887). Object - to relieve resident and casual poor. Income 1896-7, £70.7s.6d. Expenditure, £63.9s.lOd. 254 persons relieved during the year.

Sheffield Jews' School (founded 1892). [In 1898 45 children attended this school.] (In 1900) Present number of children in attendance 107.

Jewish Tailors' Sabbath Observance and Benefit Society.

Jewish Working Men's Club (founded 1901).

[A - Primarily from The Rise of Provincial Jewry (1950), by Cecil Roth]
[a - The Jewish Directory for 1874, by Asher I. Myers]
[b - Jewish Year Book]

 

Board of Deputies returns

  births marriages burials seatholders

1856

12 (7M)

1

4

35

1860

 

1

2

21

1870

 

0

2

31

1880

 

1

8

45

1890

 

5

No report

40

1894

 

7

 

82

1900

 

17

 

48


The Sheffield Jewish Community in the 19th century

Kenneth Lunn

(For a brief early history of the Community, see "Sheffield" in Cecil Roth's "The Rise of Provincial Jewry", 1950)

(By hovering your mouse cursor over the superscript footnote number in the text,
the wording of the footnote will appear in a pop-up box.)

'The story of the Jewish community of Sheffield provides a curious example of the tendency of nineteenth century Anglo-Jewry to confuse its origins.'1. Cecil Roth's assessment of the difficulties of establishing exactly the date of the founding of a community in the town was illustrated very clearly by the varying dates which were attributed to the establishment of the first synagogue. They varied from 1790 (Jewish Year Book) to 1850 (Jewish Directory, 1874)2. If we take the establishment of a synagogue, or at least the hiring of a room for this purpose, as the mark of community activity, then there are certain problems in dating exactly the birth of the Sheffield congregation. In Roth's History of the Jews in England (1941), he accepted the earlier date of 1790 (see p.228), but in Provincial Jewry it was made clear that this marks the first recorded incidence of a Jew making his home in the town. This is a reference to the Bright family, the 'first Jewish family of any note to settle in Sheffield'.3. There were other traders who, it is claimed, settled in the 18th century; Gershon Abrahams, spectacle maker, who was established in the town before 1797, and Benjamin Polack, a silversmith, whose mark was registered in Sheffield Assay Office in 1807, are two examples of these pioneers.4. However, these isolated references are not indicative of a local community.

According to Roth, the first mention of an established congregation was in 1838. This is the date mentioned by A.A. Levy in 1842 in his series of local studies in The Jewish Chronicle. 'It appears that a few of our brethren have been residing there for many years, but they did not form a congregation till the year 1838.5. Since other sources, such as Margoliouth's History of the Jews in Great Britain (1851), simply followed Levy's account, this date came to be generally accepted. Roth did note the tradition of the Sheffield synagogue's annual appeal on behalf of local hospitals being instituted in 1828, but put this down to faulty arithmetic.6.

There is, however, some justification for believing that the foundation of a congregation predates 1838. The research done by Eric Lipson and by the Jewish community in Sheffield for the tercentenary celebrations in 1956 suggest that a room was hired as a synagogue in the 1820s. As early as 1817, Solomon Myer kept his own Shochet and encouraged a 'growing band of Jews' to attend Minyan in his house.7. When Myer moved to Hull, it appears that 'band' hired the room and, with the Chief Rabbi's help, engaged a Shochet, Lazarus Brown, Eliezer Lezer ben Mordecai.8. The evidence for this claim comes from an account of the development of the Jewish congregation, written in 1872, in conjunction with the report on the laying of a foundation stone for a new synagogue. 'In or about the year 5589 - 1828, the number of families having increased, they hired a room to be used as a place of worship and applied to the Chief Rabbi of the time for their first Shochet, and Mr. Brown, father of Mrs. Brown of Leeds, received the appointment.'9.

This evidence seems rather at odds with the claim of John Jacobs, son of Samuel Jacobs, who settled in Sheffield probably in 1827. Roth stated that the Jacobs family was the centre of the Jewish community in the 1820s,10. but John Jacobs maintained that in these early years, they were the only Jewish family in the town.11. The family had its own Shool, and a Shochet, Abraham Neugass. In fact, the family supplied the only two Jewish families in Leeds at that time with kosher meat. Jacobs did record that the family was never without a Minyan, because on Fridays, his mother told the children to look out for Jewish travellers and bring them home.12. But the bulk of the evidence suggests that the Jacobs were not, in fact, the only Jewish family in Sheffield at this time.13. It is clear that, by 1830-1, there was an established community, carrying out organised activity.

At this point, it is important to define 'community activity'. Roth pointed out the unsatisfactory nature of events such as the settlement of the first Jew, public worship or the establishment of a synagogue as evidence of an organised community. 'A better criterion is the date of the acquisition of a burial ground, which unlike the other manifestations of Jewish religious life requires corporate action and thereby a certain degree of organisation.'14. Using this criterion, we can point to an organised group in 1831 who negotiated the lease of a piece of land for a cemetery. This confirms community organisation, as opposed to individual action, for there are examples of both in this year. The Bright family leased a plot from the Duke of Norfolk for a family cemetery at Rodmoor, just outside the town boundary, but it is clear that the Brights took little, if any, part in Jewish communal life. It was the lease of land for a cemetery in Bowden Street, signed on 3 August 1831, which marked the first real record of group activity.15. The five signatures on the lease were Samuel Jacobs, Reuben Levy, Lazarus Cohen, Levi Emmanuel and Isaac Moss. Jacobs and Emmanuel were mentioned in Levy's Jewish Chronicle account as being responsible for the establishment of the congregation in 1838, but this lease suggests that organised activity goes back to 1831 and probably earlier. A further piece of evidence would seem to confirm this. In 1830, it was recorded that 'the residents of this town, of the Jewish persuasion, have got up a petition to Parliament praying for a removal of civil disabilities. A few individuals of their body waited on the householders, and a great number of signatures were obtained.'16. Obviously, by 1830, there was an organised Jewish community in Sheffield.

The size of this community in the early years is difficult to establish. Levy, in 1842, claimed 'There are at present about ten Jewish families in the town, who are principally engaged in trade'.17. In the 'Statistical Summary of the Hebrew Congregations in the British Empire' (Jewish Chronicle, 23 July 1847)18. the Jewish population of Sheffield was put at 56. The only other concrete evidence for the middle of the century19. is a letter to The Jewish Chronicle from 'A Yorkshireman', which says the community did not number more than twelve families.20.

Information on the occupations of the early settlers is also scarce. The Bright family were engaged in the jewellery trade,21. as was Isaac Moss, one of the signatories to the 1931 lease.22. Another of the signatories, Reuben Levy, later ran a tailoring firm which was a rival of the Sheffield branch of E. Moses and Son.23. As A.A. Levy pointed out, the Jewish community at this time appears to have been composed of fairly well established traders and their families.24. Certain individuals, like the Brights, had become well integrated into the social structure of non-Jewish society, despite the legal restrictions. Maurice Bright, the 'pioneer' of 1790, was extremely active in local affairs. In 1827, he was appointed as a Police Commissioner, and in 1845, was elected as a town councillor - the first year that it was possible for a Jew to assume the office.25. Later, Henry Levy, son of Reuben, contested a seat on the council in 1858 and 1859, but was unsuccessful.26. At this time, relations with the non-Jewish community seem to have been fairly harmonious. The Town Council agreed to petition Parliament for the removal of civil disabilities in 1845 and again in 1857.27. However, a sour note was struck in 1851, when The Sheffield Times censured spectators 'for rudeness and disrespect at the funeral of a Chazan'.28.

After renting a room in Holly Street as a synagogue, the congregation then moved in 1848 to premises in Figtree Lane, which were to serve as a base for over twenty years. By now, the community was beginning to find its feet, as 'A Yorkshireman' tells us.

This little congregation has for many years struggled for mere existence; during the last few years, however, a favourable change has come over our congregational position, so much so that last week we wore enabled to purchase the whole of the freehold property, combining the present - and, up to now, hired - synagogue, with residence for the reader of the congregation, for £350, towards which we have actually raised within our own little community, not numbering above twelve families, a sum of coming close to £200.29.

This apparent unity, however, was not very deep-seated; indeed Lipson suggested, in his notes in the Sheffield Jewish Journal that it was 'achieved by autocracy'. Newcomers were content to have decisions imposed upon them by a powerful few, the Privileged members, until they became discontented with the apparent lack of democracy. In 1859, a meeting of the congregation ended in uproar. Two people were expelled from the congregation and one was only allowed back after a number of years, 'provided that a police officer was in attendance with powers to evict him and others should their conduct warrant it'.30. A growing rift developed between the powerful few and the newcomers. Early in 1860, a Chazan, Bertholde Albu, left Sheffield at the request of the minority in authority, although a majority of the community were against his transfer.31. Following this, there was a complete split within the community, with the breaking away of the dissidents. They formed a Chevra, which became known as the Central Hebrew or New Congregation. The date of this breakaway is given as 1864 (Jewish Year Book, 1895). This probably refers to the formal establishment; there is mention of the 'other congregation' in the minutes of the Old Congregation meetings as early as 6 July 1862, and Lipson dates the split from April-May 1860. It seems that both sides claimed rights to the synagogue and the trustees, representing the old members, sold the building, leaving only a sum of money over which arguments could be conducted. New trustees were appointed, again representing the old members, and the synagogue was repurchased, leaving the dissidents with no alternative but to set up their own community.32.

This new congregation had numerical strength, but scant financial resources. Their leaving, however, seriously weakened the Old Congregation, and dashed their plans for a new synagogue. Subscriptions for this venture had been collected since 1858 but finances now became a serious problem. Eventually, in 1871, a Special General Meeting deemed it essential to erect a new synagogue and school, and, in the following year, the foundation stone for a new building was laid. The congregation now was numerically small, and not particularly wealthy, and the minutes of meetings show that there was continual bickering and resignation amongst the members. The community as a whole suffered from these squabbles. When the Chief Rabbi visited the school run in connection with the new synagogue, in 1875, he found it 'utterly disorganised'. The obvious remedy, a reconciliation with the Chevra, was placed out of the question by the Chief Rabbi the same year, in a letter instructing the Old Congregation to have nothing to do with the breakaway movement, which by the 1870s, was relatively flourishing. This does not mean that it was homogeneous, for it is apparent that doctrinal and personal differences occurred even within this group. Indeed, Adler's letter refers to the two Chevras, as does a congregational meeting a month earlier in October 1875. Clearly, in this period, the Jewish community was still in the process of development, which suggests that the Jewish population was increasing throughout these years.

In complete contrast to the Chevra, the Old Congregation came into increasing difficulties, largely financial. A meeting had to be held on 6 February 1881 to discuss how the closure of the synagogue could be prevented. A joint meeting with the Chevra was held two weeks later, to attempt a reconciliation, but it is recorded that members of the Chevra were 'unbending' and no agreement could be reached. The decline continued; congregational meetings were characterised by arguments and threats of legal proceedings. By 1888, for the visit of the Chief Rabbi, only six children were in attendance at the school, and now even the Chief Rabbi attempted to bring the communities together, albeit unsuccessfully. It was not until the immigration of the 1890s that the fortunes of the Old Congregation were restored.33.

It is clear from the account of these forty years or so that the Jewish community in Sheffield was being steadily increased by immigration, arriving at the east coast ports, and, in particular, Hull, 'which has been the springboard for Sheffield Jewish families'.34. This was certainly true of the immigration in the 1880s. Edwin Grocock, an examining officer in the Custom House at Hull, noted that five or six per cent of passengers arriving at port remained in the country, travelling to Leeds, Wakefield, Manchester and 'great manufacturing towns in the North'.35. The majority of passengers were on through tickets to the United States, travelling overland from Hull to Liverpool. It is possible that Sheffield attracted some of these migrants, since it was on the railway route to Liverpool. Another important route would be Hull-Manchester, with Sheffield again acting as an intermediate and perhaps permanent stopping-off point. This new immigration created problems of welfare, which were catered for by the Sheffield Jewish Board of Guardians, set up in 1887. Its forerunner, the Hebrew Benevolent Society, had been in operation since 1873.36. Again this is evidence of the continual growth of the community prior to the 'flood' of the 1880s immigration.

By 1903, the Jewish population in Sheffield, according to the Jewish Year Book, was 800, and most of these were recent immigrants; the original Anglo-Jewish community never having been strong numerically. Indeed, it might be said that the survival of Sheffield Jewry was due to immigration. Maurice Wigram, President of the Sheffield Hebrew Congregation, in his evidence to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration in 1903, noted a gradual influx of foreign Jews over the last ten years. Most of these came from other English towns, he claimed, although this meant simply that they had remained in the ports for a short time before coming to Sheffield. They were employed in various occupations - 'tailors, machinists, cabinetmakers, plumbers, painters, paper-hangers, glaziers and watchmakers'.37. Wigram claimed that most of the immigrants came to Sheffield specifically, either because they had relatives living there, or because they knew of jobs that were available. He was at pains to point out that there was no destitution amongst foreigners, no overcrowding, that they had no adverse effect upon wages and hours and that they did not deprive the native population of work. In fact, he claimed, since most of the immigrants were in the employing class, particularly in tailoring, they provided employment rather than taking it away.38.

On the question of destitution, Wigram pointed out that in the previous year only two Jews had been in the workhouse and that this was demonstrated by the figures for Poor Law Relief in 1902: 21 aliens given relief, 18 outdoor, 2 indoor and 1 committed to a lunatic asylum.39. Clearly, however, these figures do not provide an accurate overall picture of distress at this time, since the local Jewish Board of Guardians provided relief for many others.

The following figures were given to the Royal Commission.40.

Year

No. of aliens relieved

Resident

Casual

1896-7

254

68

186

1897-8

299

94

205

1898-9

319

71

248

1899-1900

261

69

192

1901-02

288

77

151

Comments:

Many of the casuals only receive relief to enable them to reach their work elsewhere.

This data shows that something like ten per cent of the resident Jewish population at this time was in need of relief, despite Wigram's claim that many were in the employing class. This illustrates the rather precarious nature of employer status in this era. The numbers receiving casual relief payments is further evidence of the position of Sheffield on the east-west migration route. It is necessary, however, to put the figures in perspective. This immigration of foreign Jews was only a very tiny fraction of the total immigration into Sheffield in the period 1891-1901, which approached 10,000. In addition, poverty and distress affected a large number of the non-Jewish population in the 1880s and 90s. The average expenditure of the Sheffield and Ecclesall Poor Law Union in the 1880s was £45,000 a year, and the city set up distress funds for the relief of the poor and unemployed in 1895, 1902 and 1903. Unemployment was increasing in these years, particularly in the area of light trades, where men were being replaced by machinery.41. This was particularly true of the tailoring industry, where skilled workmen were being forced to compete with increasing division of labour and with mechanisation. The effects of this new challenge were reflected in some hostility towards the foreign immigrant entering the trade in these years. The reaction in Sheffield was shown by the 1903 Royal Commission.

Joe Marfin, Secretary of the Sheffield branch of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors, complained that Jewish workmen were taking away certain jobs from the native labour force. 'We speak of Sheffield as we find it, and we find that alien labour is taking the place of British labour in the second class tailoring trade of Sheffield.'42. He also alleged that the Corporation was giving contracts to firms employing a greater sub-division of labour, and using foreign immigrants in their workforce, thus throwing native workers out of employment.43. This charge was refuted by Alfred Richards, manager of the West End Clothiers Company of London, whose Sheffield branch had recently been given the Corporation contracts referred to by Marfin. Richards said that, out of a hundred employees in the branch, only thirteen were foreign Jews. He spoke very highly of their work and attendances, deeming them more dependable than the English tailors they employed.44. From this it would seem that increasing mechanisation and sub-division of work was producing distress in Sheffield tailoring, rather than the use of foreign labour. The House of Lords investigation into 'sweating' in 1888-9 found little evidence of competition from foreign labour in the trade in Sheffield, unlike other towns. William Leggatt, Secretary of the National Federation of Foreman Tailors and Master Tailors said that there was hardly any foreign labour used in tailoring at that particular time.45. The numbers revealed by the 1903 Royal Commission do not appear to justify Marfin's complaint.

The immigration of the 1880s and 90s led to a more organised structure of Jewish societies and self-help groups within the community. Naturally, many of the newcomers needed some help in settling into the society, and the growth of organised activity reflected this need, In the 1890s, Zionist meetings were being held in Sheffield, and the Sheffield Zionist Association came into being in 1899, with an inaugural meeting of some eighty people. Later that year, it was decided to take up 125 shares in the Jewish Colonial Trust.46. In 1902, a share club was established to help the 'greeners' to purchase £1 shares in the Trust.47. A Naturalization Society existed, with payments of one shilling a week by each member. When a sum of £25 had been raised, lots were drawn to determine who should have the money, which was the necessary naturalization fee, and it was not until 1913 that all the members had received British citizenship.48. There was also a Jewish Working Men's Club, at a subscription of two pence per week.49. In 1901 at the first dance of the season, there were over 250 members and friends, and the planned programme of meetings included lectures, concerts and dances.50. Other developments to help the new immigrant included the Jewish Ladies Benevolent Society, founded in 1900, and the Dorcas, or Sewing Guild, established about the same time.51. In terms of schooling, the Hebrew Education Board was formed in 1902; the first Talmud Torah being in a room above a butcher's shop at West Bar, transferring to more pleasant surroundings in Paradise Square in 1904.52. Leisure and recreation were also catered for by this time; there are records of a Jewish Literary and Philharmonic Society and a Jewish Cycling Club.53. By the end of Queen Victoria's reign, the Sheffield Jewish community had become established and organised.

How can we explain the particular development of the Jewish community in Sheffield in the nineteenth century? It is clear that the most important factor was the immigration into the area in the second half of the century, since the small, established Anglo-Jewish population of the 1840s was almost totally eclipsed by 1900. The evidence as presented in this paper suggests that population growth was steady and consistent throughout the second half of the century, not just in the 1880s and 90s. Indeed, this might explain why immigrants were attracted to the city in this later period, since, as Wigram claimed, they would have relatives who had recently established themselves in Sheffield. Why there should be this steady growth is harder to assess. Sheffield's increasing ease of accessibility with the development of the railways, particularly the link with the east coast ports, was one reason. The Hull-Sheffield link, pointed out by several writers, may be vital in the history of the Sheffield community; and is deserving of more research.

Another factcr which may have proved attractive to the immigrant anxious to establish himself was the structure of labour relations. The cutlery trade, Sheffield's most famous industry, was less rigidly divided between management and labour than other occupations. 'There were few wealthy manufacturers, and the transition from workman to master was a common occurrence.'54. Although few Jews entered the cutlery trade, the general principle may well have applied to the many small industrial concerns which emerged from the general population growth of the city in the nineteenth century, and have attracted the immigrant with the possibility of self-advancement.

However, the essential 'survival factor' was the immigration from 1880 onwards, and those who had settled before this time provided the necessary social structure into which the newcomers could fit, thus ensuring the continuance of Sheffield Jewry. Although the size of the community was relatively small, compared with, say, Leeds, it had become remarkably self-contained by 1900, and therefore able to maintain its independence in later years.

FOOTNOTES ( returns to main text)

  1. Cecil Roth, The Rise of Provincial Jewry: The Early History of the Jewish Community in the English Countryside, 1740-1840, (London, 1950), p.99.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Eric Lipson, 'The Brights of Market Place', Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society, (T.H.A.S.), vi, no. 3, (1947), pp. 117-25.

  4. 'Notes on the History of' the Sheffield Jewish Community', Sheffield Jewish Journal, Tercentenary Edition, (1956), p. 8.

  5. The Jewish Chronicle, 15 April 1842.

  6. Roth, Provincial Jewry, p. 99.

  7. Sheffield Jewish Journal, ref. cit., p. 8.

  8. Ibid. The journal notes that Brown was buried in Leeds, and that there is a commemorative window in the Belgrave Street Synagogue in that city.

  9. The Jewish Chronicle, 12 January 1872, cited in Eric Lipson, 'The History of the Jews in Sheffield in the 19th century', paper delivered to the Jewish Historical Society of England, February 1945. Manuscript copy, Sheffield City Libraries, Miscellaneous Documents 1840.

  10. Roth, Provincial Jewry, p. 99.

  11. The Jewish Chronicle, 24 August 1900.

  12. Ibid.

  13. The Jewish Chronicle, 12 January 1872 refers to 'three or four Jewish families' in 1824. Lipson, op. cit.

  14. Roth, Provincial Jewry, p. 14.

  15. Document of conveyance, dated 28 September 1897, gives the date of the original lease, the rent and the names of the original lessees. Sheffield City Libraries, Miscellaneous Papers 440 M.

  16. Sheffield Independent, 13 May 1830.

  17. The Jewish Chronicle, 15 April 1842.

  18. Probably the results of a survey commissioned in 1845 by the Chief Rabbi, Nathan Adler. See V.D. Lipman, 'A Survey of Anglo-Jewry in 1851', Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Volume 17, (1951-2), p. 172.

  19. Sheffield is not mentioned in any of the other statistical surveys of the time. For details, see ibid., p. 184.

  20. The Jewish Chronicle, 13 June 1851.

  21. See T.H.A.S., op. cit.

  22. Sheffield Jewish Journal, op. cit., p. 9.

  23. Ibid. See Lloyd P. Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England, 1870-1914, (London, 1960), p. 85 for details of E. Moses and Son.

  24. Lipson described the congregation in 1860, at the time of the schism. 'A full minyan of the Congregation were jewellers or watchmakers, several were tailors and there was a sprinkling of merchants, agents and manufacturers in a small way, of various kinds.' Lipson, op. cit.

  25. T.H.A.S., op. cit., p. 123.

  26. Lipson, op. cit.

  27. See J.M. Furness, Record of Municipal Affairs in Sheffield, (Sheffield, 1393).

  28. Sheffield Jewish Journal, op. cit., p. 11.

  29. The Jewish Chronicle, 13 June 1851.

  30. Sheffield Jewish Journal, op. cit., p. 10.

  31. Ibid. For an account of the problems arising from the development of a Jewish middle class in this period, see Aubrey Newman, 'Setting the Scene: Anglo-Jewry in 1870', pp.1-2, in Salmond Levin (ed.), A Century of Anglo-Jewish Life, 1870-1970, (London, 1970).

  32. Lipson, op. cit.

  33. This account is based closely on the details in Sheffield Jewish Journal, op. cit., pp. 11-13, and Lipson, op. cit. These are written from the minutes of the Old Congregation meetings, which are preserved from 1850 onwards. The early records of the original Chevra were destroyed in 1940 during the Blitz.

  34. T.H.A.S., op. cit., p. 117.

  35. House of Commons Select Committee on Emigration and Immigration (Foreigners), British Parliamentary Papers X, 1889, p. 28.

  36. See document of conveyance of piece of land at Walkley for Jewish Cemetery, purchased by Trustees of Sheffield Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1884. This gives the date of founding of the Society as 1873. (Sheffield City Libraries, Miscellaneous Documents 1784). There is also a note in a minute book of 1944 which records 'Ben formed 1872 at 1/- a week'. (Sheffield Jewish Journal, July 1962, p.9). A letter to the Old Congregation in October 1872 from the founders of the Society suggests that 1873 was, like the founding of the Chevra, the formalisation of an institution already in existence.
    In September 1873, the Old Congregation agreed to have nothing to do with the society; that no member should serve on its committee, and anyone joining should lose his seat. It was obviously a Chevra-based organisation.

  37. Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, B.P.P. IX, 1903, Minutes of Evidence, p. 726.

  38. Ibid. Much of his evidence was aimed specifically to Sir Howard Vincent, the Sheffield M.P. who played a leading part in the anti-alien campaign, and was a member of the Commission.

  39. Table XXIX, Appendix to Minutes of Evidence, R.C. (1903).

  40. Evidence presented by Charles Emmanuel, secretary and solicitor to Jewish Board of Deputies, R.C. (1903), p. 595.

  41. Sidney Pollard, A History of Labour in Sheffield, (Liverpool, 1959), pp. 181-5, 337.

  42. R.C. (1903), p. 513.

  43. Ibid., pp. 513-4.

  44. Ibid., pp. 728-9.

  45. See House of Lords Select Committee on the Sweating System, B.P,P. XIV, 1889, Part 1, p. 257.

  46. Sheffield Jewish Journal, op. cit., pp. 46-7.

  47. Ibid., p. 16.

  48. Ibid., p. 14.

  49. Ibid., p. 17.

  50. The Jewish Chronicle, 8 November 1901. The Club did not have any permanent premises, and so had rented the Lower Albert Hall for the season.

  51. Sheffield Jewish Journal, op. cit., pp. 36-7.

  52. Ibid., p. 39.

  53. Ibid., p. 15.

  54. Pollard, op. citi p. 3.

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