Jewish Officers and Men in the Territorial Force

[PhilB]

14th London Scottish 0

28th Artists Rifles 0

The other suprise about the officers of the 19th is that about 25% of those commissioned into the 19th in 1917 and 1918 were Glaswegian. But that's another story....

Charles

The fact that Glasgow men went into the 19th in numbers but none went into the London Scottish might indicate some bias? And I`m sure the Jewish community had its share of middle class artistic types? Phil B

[Charles Fair]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Mar 19 2007, 11:03 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The fact that Glasgow men went into the 19th in numbers but none went into the London Scottish

I would be intereseted to see compartive stats on London Scottish officers in 1917/18. These Glasweigan officers in the 19th generally came from 9 HLI or the Glasgow Yeomanry - middle / lower middle class Scots who had generally been to one of the grammar schools. Good officer material, but would not have been considered as such pre 1914. The former 9 HLI men had often seen service on the W Front and were often former NCOs.

[Guest mruk]

Hello Charles,

I hope you don't think I'm hijacking the thread, but this piece is particularly appropriate for those who were serving in the 19th and other units and regiments at this time.

General Sarrail and General Mahon have given their permission for 70 Jewish officers and non-commissioned officers and 400 men of the Allied Army to attend the two days' religious festival of the Passover. A similar privilege will be extended to the Catholics on Easter Day. [The Times, Friday, April 21, 1916. p. 3]

Happy Pesach and Happy Easter,

Dave

[Charles Fair]

Dave - not at all. I will keep an eye out for any reference to Passover in the various war diaries of 47 Div. Many thanks for this. Charles

[Jeff Reese]

Hello Charles,

With regard the various Regiments that Jewish Officers served in, almost all of these at some point or another started off in the London Regiment. Most joined up through the Rothschild's Bank Headquarters. Rothschild was a staunch supporter of the war and went around Synagogues encouraging Jewish men to join up, opening a recruiting centre at the Headquarters of his bank in Central London. Many of the Jewish men after joinging up as Privates went on to be commisioned into various Regiments, seemingly going to where they were needed. My Great Uncle joined the 23rd Battalion London regiment before being discharged onto a Commision Course with the 14th West Yorks in 1915. He eventually transfered to the 2nd Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment before being killed at 3rd Ypres in 1917

With regard the Obitury of Captain Solomon, as a current Member of the Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade I was at our Headquarters recently and recall seeing a letter written by him to the Officers and Warrent Officers of the JLB wishing them good luck etc as he had been posted to France. This letter has only recently come to light and if I can I will try and get a copy and post it for you.

Jeff

[Charles Fair]

Jeff, thanks for your interesting post. I havent started looking at the ORs in the BBJ yet, so your post has given me a couple of ideas of ways to approach it.

With regard the Obitury of Captain Solomon, as a current Member of the Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade I was at our Headquarters recently and recall seeing a letter written by him to the Officers and Warrent Officers of the JLB wishing them good luck etc as he had been posted to France. This letter has only recently come to light and if I can I will try and get a copy and post it for you.

I would love to see a copy of this letter, or a transcript, so would really appreciate this.

regards

Charles

[susanhemmings]

What a superb thread this is.

It makes interesting reading.

[Patrick ODwyer]

Dear Members - sorry to mix in here but I thought it may be a good place to start. Does anyone by any chance have a copy of this article?

'...A Good Jew and a Good Englishman': The Jewish Lads' Brigade, 1894-1922

Richard A. Voeltz

Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), pp. 119-127

Many thanks

[Charles Fair]

Patrick - thanks for bringing that to my attention, I dont have it but would be interested to read it.

[Patrick ODwyer]

Patrick - thanks for bringing that to my attention, I dont have it but would be interested to read it.

Charles

You can buy it on-line for about £8 but as I only want to check something in it I am reluctant to pay the price of a book! If all else fails the library may help trace a copy I guess. I am also interested in an incident investigated by Baden-Powell involving a Jewish Officer. I don't suppose you have any biography of him?

Patrick

[Guest JLGB]

Dear all,

I have stumbled upon this thread, which makes very interesting reading. Though it appears that much of the discussion is now around a year old, I thought it a nice idea to register and join in on the off-chance I may be able to help – from the Jewish Lads' [& Girls'] Brigade Headquarters.

While I cannot currently locate the article mentioned by Patrick above, I am aware of it, as the book 'A Good Jew and a Good Englishman', which is a history of the Brigade from 1895-1995, draws its name from the same. It may be worthwhile to mention that the book records:

'A total of 525 names appear on the JLB Roll of Honour. This figure accounts for almost one-third (27 per cent) of all British Jews who died for their country during the conflict (1,949). It represents 80 per cent of casualties amongst Jewish serving officers. The British Jewry Book of Honour notes that 80 out of a total of 90 JLB officers joined up as volunteers in 1914; 38 of them never returned. Amongst their number were some of the longest serving JLB officers: Victor B. Barnett, Ernest M. Green, Victor V. Jacob, Edgar E. Kahn, Nathaniel Marks, Denzil Myer, Ellis J.A. Paiba, Edgar B. Samuel, Leonard Solomon and Arthur Solomon. In all, 19 out of 35 officers of London [JLB] Companies before the war made the 'supreme sacrifice'. Henry Dreschfield, founder and first Commanding Officer [sic] of the Manchester JLB, was also killed in action along with Captain Jack E. Rothband, Ralph Besso, Harry Levi and Ralph Frankenburg. This Company won the highest of battle honours.'

Second Lieutenant Denzil Myer was killed in action on 25 February 1917 (coincidentally, 91 years ago on Monday). His last letter, together with a portrait photograph in army uniform, is reproduced in our book:

'Goodbye to all the JLB officers & boys – Under orders for Mesopotamia & hope to return & find the JLB still going strong.'

2Lt Myer's cap badge in the photo seems to me to be Worcestershire Regiment, although it's not all that clear.

Patrick, if you know the name of this officer with whom Baden-Powell had an altercation, I could check to see if he is mentioned anywhere as an officer of the Brigade.

Should it be of any use, we have a number of copies of the book here at Headquarters (in both paperback and hardback). Similarly, our archives could be made available, though they are due some extensive re-cataloguing and re-ordering.

Lee Sidney

Operations Officer

The Jewish Lads' & Girls' Brigade

[Rab]

Compliments of Dave Stowe [Mruk]

[Rab]

SOURCE:

Leeds' Boys Modern School

Fallen on the Field of Honour 1914-1918

[wheatley473]

Hello All,

Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on something that I have been working on. I have been studying the composition of the officer corps of the Regiment that I have been researching, the 19th London Regt (St Pancras). I have been trying to get a handle on how it compares with the other London Battalions.

One source that I have found useful is the British Jewry Book of Honour which lists 163 who were commissioned into the London Regt. This table shows how many were in each Battalion, with the battalions ranked in descending order:

Battalion Name No. of Jewish officers

19th St. Pancras 18

13th Kensington 16

10th Hackney 14

6th 'Cast Iron' Sixth 12

12th The Rangers 8

17th Poplar & Stepney R 8

3rd Royal Fusiliers 8

1st Royal Fusiliers 7

23rd Clapham 7

2nd Royal Fusiliers 7

7th 'Shiny' Seventh 6

8th Post Office Rifles 6

16th Queen's Westminster 5

11th Finsbury Rifles 4

21st First Surrey Rifles 4

24th The Queens 4

4th Royal Fusiliers 4

9th Queen Victoria's R 4

15th Civil Service Rifles 3

18th London Irish Rifles 3

5th London Rifle Brigade 3

22nd The Queens 2

25th London Cyclists 2

20th Blackheath & Woolwich 1

14th London Scottish 0

28th Artists Rifles 0

not stated n/s 7

------------------------------------------------------------

TOTAL 163

[source: British Jewry Book of Honour pp. 459-460]

Somewhat to my surprise, the 19th came top of the table with 18 listed. (In addition I know of another Jewish officer in the 19th who is not listed in BBJ, and one of those commissioned into the 10th was also attached to the 1/19th.)

I am trying to explain this distribution. Whilst there is inevitably a random element, the table must also reflect where they lived and worked, as well as ties of kinship and education. On looking at the service records and entries in the 1918 AVL of those in the 19th I have a partial explanation as to why the 19th might have been top. Many of these officers lived in Hampstead and Highate. Many also worked in banking or insurance companies (such as the Prudential in Holborn). The 19th's HQ in Camden Town would have been perfectly situated between work and home.

I would be interested to hear thoughts about the other battalions.

The other suprise about the officers of the 19th is that about 25% of those commissioned into the 19th in 1917 and 1918 were Glaswegian. But that's another story....

Are there similar patterns in the TF (or indeed New Army) units of other cities?

Charles

Hi Charles

I have been trying to get hold of you on another matter.

Are you still around on this site?

[Charles Fair]

Hi Nick - Im still around - just have been off forum for a couple of months

regards

Charles

[Charles Fair]

I've done some additional work on this topic and have counted up the number of Jewish other ranks in each Battalion.

The British Jewry Book of Honour lists 163 officers and 3,374 other ranks as serving with the London Regiment.(1) This is a valuable - albeit imperfect - source in revealing patterns of Jewish recruitment into the London Regiment. The flaws and value of this work have been discussed elsewhere in more detail.(2) There are plenty of errors and omissions. On particular problem that affects TF units is that of duplications. Some men are listed twice: once with a four digit number, and then again with a six digit post-March 1917.

However, a simple tally of the number of officers and other ranks produces counts for each battalion as shown in the attached word document. (Please note that no attempt has been made to distinguish between first, second and third line battalions. Where a six digit post-March 1917 has been given, but no battalion stated, I have given the battalion that that six digit number would have belonged to. No attempt has been made to remove duplicates or correct omissions: I have assumed that all the battalions have been affected equally, and that in aggregate the analysis reveals something not far from the true picture.)

As before, I would be grateful for comments. There are some interesting differences when the distribution of officers is compared with other ranks.

(1) The British Jewry Book of Honour, Rev. Michael Adler (ed) Caxton Publishing, 1922, pp. 459-490

(2) See ‘Errors, Omissions, and Duplications in the British Jewry Book of Honour’, Harold Pollins, Stand To! No. 80, Summer 2007

Jewish_officers_and_men_in_the_London_Regiment_1914_18.doc

[themonsstar]

Happy New Year

Charles

Nice to see you posting again

Cheers Roy

[bmac]

Charles,

Interesting table. I have used as a source for general socal background to various areas 'The Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910' by Henry Pelling. It mentions two books which may be of interest to you if you haven't already seen them: Social History of the Jews in England 1859-1950 by V D Lipman (1954) and The Jewish Immigrant in England by Lloyd P Gartner (1960). Pelling gives as those areas with the largest Jewish communities during this period the Parliamentary constituencies of Whitechapel and St Georges, both in Tower Hamlets (31.8% and 28.8% Jewish by 1901), with other significant communities in Stepney, Limehouse and Mile End Old Town. For the first four of these seats, candidates and MPs from both Liberal and Conservative Parties were regularly of Jewish descent. The extent of the immigrant population in Whitechapel can be judged by the fact that in 1900 the electors of Whitechapel represented only 6.4% of the population, the lowest proportion in Britain. How this information correlates with your tables is the question but I wonder whether you have been able, or have considered, breaking the numbers down between those who joined up in 1914/5 who were more likely to join units close to the place of residence and business and those who joined up from the time when these geographic considerations were no longer deemed important, i.e. those who were sent to France post July 1916 who had joined up in the, what, nine months before?

Bill

[Charles Fair]

Bill - thanks for suggesting those two books, I will try and track them down. I havent looked at census data etc. so far. The battalions with the most Jewish other ranks are ones that I am not surprised to see at the top of the list e.g. 10th and 17th.

The only battalion for which I can separate the 1914/15 recruits from those later on will be the 19th Londons. I'll do that and see if there are any differences. Tom Thorpe should be able to do the same for the 13th Londons.

Charles

[E Wilcock]

When I looked at conscientious objection among Jews (a long time ago now) there were several complicating factors which may have a bearing on the distirbution you are noticing.

Most important is nationality - were foreign nationals eligible for service in the TA?

Naturalisation was an expensive process and open only to the more middle class, and needed only by someone who wished to buy property in the UK. Even where a census lists an immigrant Jew as naturalised British, records at the PRO show this was not alway true. Many East End Jews remained Russian nationals and liable for conscription into the Russian forces (an ally in 1914).

At the other end of the scale I found a relative, a casualty, listed on the Leeds City memorial but missing from the Jewish Roll of Honour presumably because the family were not rich enough to pay a synagogue subscription.

Since I am looking at a TA artillery unit myself (4th South Midland Howitzer Brigade RFA) I'd be interested in any social analysis of TA men and officers.