[⁽¹⁾ This date would appear to be an error and, according to PCC Wills, was actually 13 March 1747 (being prior to 6 April, the date would have been recorded as 1746/7). Attention to this error drawn by Mr. Anthony Pincott of the Bookplate Society.]

Occasionally a Jew achieved national fame, and his birthplace consequently became public knowledge. Such a one was Elias Parish-Alvars, famous English harpist and composer, who was born in Teignmouth in 1808. [Jew. Encycl. s.v. PARISH-ALVARS, Elias.] The search for traces of Parish-Alvars led to the discovery of a Joseph Parish, 10 Wellington Row, Teignmouth, who was a music seller there in 1827. [Pigots Directory, 1823. Benjamin Jonas, father of Joseph Jonas, first Jew in Ohio, lived next door.] Without any other indication it is difficult to identify Joseph Parish as a Jew, but the similarity of name and musical occupation suggests that he was related to Parish-Alvars. Another Jew, Isaac Gompertz, member of a famous family of that name, published a poem called Devon in Teignmouth in 1825. The book contains an epitaph to his brother Barent who was buried in the Exeter Congregation's cemetery. The Gentleman's Magazine mentions the presence of Jews in Barnstaple from 1765-1805 and in Dartmouth in 1764. [Gent. Mag. 1805, 1764.] A record at the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro, shows that Moses Jacob was well established in Redruth in 1767. [Pet. 24, Royal Institution of Cornwall.] The Census of 1851 shows, perhaps best of all, the widespread birthplaces of the members of the South-West communities in the first half of the nineteenth century. There were the Ezekiel and Levi families in Newton Abbot from 1780 to 1800; Joanna, wife of Henry Moses, was born in Hayle in 1812; Betsy, wife of Abraham Abrahams, was born in Callingden in 1799; Moss J. Jacob and Amelia wife of Henry Joseph of Penzance were born in Camborne in 1813 and 1812; Esther, daughter of Agnes and Jacob Moses, was born in Yealmpton in 1829; Martha, wife of Henry Woolf, was born in Bodmin in 1829; and Edel, wife of Joseph Joseph was born in Liskeard in 1771. Towards the second half of the nineteenth century English-born Jews in Plymouth came from a narrower spread of birthplaces. From the 1871 Census returns for Plymouth we learn of only two other families in Cornwall. There was the Joseph family in Redruth in 1842, and the family of Mrs Henrietta Jacobs in Truro in 1845. In each of these instances it may be assumed that there was at least the one Jewish family resident in the town at the time of birth. The Aliens List of Plymouth reveals Jews settled in Cornwall from the first half of the eighteenth century. Levy Emanuel was a silversmith in Truro from 1748-63; Isaac Van Oven was a spectacle maker there from 1771-85, Barnett Levy was a silversmith in St. Austell from 1758-75; Moses Israel made his home in Tavistock from 1797; from 1764, Moses Mordecai was a silversmith in Dartmouth, where he was joined by Nathan Joseph in 1784; Mordecai Jacobs plied his trade as an umbrella maker in Cornwall, probably travelling from place to place without any settled abode, from 1753-73. [Lipman, 'Aliens List', nos. 30, 20, 31, 3, 45, 57, 53.] Local directories also reveal the presence of Jews at Truro, [Pig. Direct. 1823.] St. Austell, [Universal British Directory, 1798.] Liskeard, [Pig. Direct. 1823.] Newton Abbot, [Pig. Direct. 1823; D. M. Stirling, History of Newton Abbot (Newton Abbot, 1830), p. 176.] Bideford, [Pig. Direct. 1823.] Tiverton, [Ibid.] Dawlish, [Harrison, Harrod Co's Dawlish Directory, 1862.] and Torquay, [Pig. Direct. 1823; Whites Direct. 1850.] particularly in the early part of the nineteenth century.

It may be that Jews settled in all the main centres of trade where it was possible for yet another all-round trader, particularly one specializing in jewellery and the watch trade, to make a living. As soon as the man ceased to trade, either because of old age or death, his widow and children might well move back to a neighboring organized community. This process may be illustrated by the Bellem family of Dartmouth. The progenitor of the family was Matathias Hyman ben Elijah Bellem, who was a member of the Plymouth Congregation before 1786, at which time he was in Dartmouth. [PHC A/c. 1759, p. 25.] He had a son Aaron who was born about 1780, [Because Aaron's wife was born in 1783.] probably in either Dartmouth or Plymouth. [His father was established in Dartmouth by 1786.] Aaron married a Plymouth girl, Rachel, born in 1783, [Census 1851.] and she joined him in Dartmouth where their children Harriet, Hannah, Jacob, Abraham, Esther and another were born. [PHC Bk. of Records, p. 56; Census 1851.] Aaron died on Wednesday, 23 October 1833 in Dartmouth, and was brought to Plymouth for burial on the following day. [Census 1841; PHC tomb. B.52.] By 1841, his widow and all her children were back in Plymouth. She died there in 1853, leaving her deaf and dumb daughter Harriet behind her to be supported by the Plymouth Jewish community until she too died in 1890. [Census 1871; PHC tomb. F.5.] After the death of their mother the other children left Plymouth for unknown destinations.

Table 10 summarizes the minor Jewish settlement in Devon and Cornwall in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see Map 4).

Table 10: Minor Jewish settlement in Devon and Cornwall
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

In the twentieth century, individual Jewish families, generally with a weak attachment to their religion, settled for short periods throughout Devon and Cornwall. Occasionally, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, such a family would join the Congregation at Plymouth or Torquay. During the Second World War a number of Jewish children were evacuated to the South-West. Mrs Doreen Cohen (née Barnet) was one of a group from the West Ham Secondary School, London, who were evacuated to Helston in Cornwall. She recalled:

Passover was a memorable time. Together with the Jewish parents we prepared everything ourselves. The provisions came from London but arrived very late, so for the first few days we only ate matzah. The minister, Rabbi Salomon, kept trying to reassure us that food was on its way. I'll never forget slaving over the frying pan preparing the Seder meal. I had to fry enough fish for 50 children and parents.

Habonim, a Jewish youth movement, set up South Devonshire hostels, in Exmouth, Dawlish and Teignmouth, for the new concentrations of evacuated Jewish children. [JC, 1 September 1989, 'London Extra', pp. 3, 6.]

Some Jewish families from Plymouth moved inland to escape the bombing. One family moved to Horrabridge, and Mr J. B. Goodman could be seen walking the ten miles or so, there and back, every Saturday morning, under the hot summer sun or through the deep Dartmoor snow drifts of winter, to attend the Sabbath service in the Plymouth synagogue.