2011 – September – 04
Hi
Apologies for not having done anything for a couple of months but I’ve been busy with other task.
Technical
Updated Joomla to v1.7 on 03/04 September
This resulted in the family tree database being offline overnight (UK time) for 12 hours
Updated the document images in the family tree database on 04 September – images offline for 2 hours
John Pesman
Added the remainder of his will (it was missing) thanks to Eileen Bird
Hannah Jacobs
Added links down from Hannah via Harriet to Stephen Bonn
Cole/Fairclough
Thanks to Geoffrey Cole for extending the tree downwards from Frederick Stafford Fairclough and Ellen Dorothy Jacobs
Isaac Simons, brother of Lewis Simons who married Jane Jacobs
I received an email from Kimberly Thomas who is the great, great granddaughter of Isaac Simons(Symons)
Hannah Jacobs
Found her death in 1912 and the will index which lists her son in law, Alfred Barker as executor.
Newspaper Cuttings
Phil Kirby has been busy scanning through the newspapers looking for relevant cuttings and has found 28 so far.
Those that have been added to date are:
Lewis Pesman – Details of how he died. [1852]
Edward Lawrence Levy – we learn that he has a brother, William and an uncle, Henry Levy
Augustus Levy is in trouble for theft. Has been using surnames: Lawrence, Micklethwaite and Fisher
Henry Jacobs – accused by two nephews of painting his shop sign to misrepresent himself as his brother David.
[He has opened a shop at 68 High Holborn and painted the sign “Brother to the late David Jacobs” but the words ‘Brother to’ were so small that passers by would not notice them.]
Moses Jacobs – appears as a solicitor
More will be added as soon as I have some spare time.
Discounted Bill
The Jacobs and Levys are often involved in ‘discounted bills’.
A brief explanation is:
Mr Black has a Bill of Exchange for £100 from Mr White, dated 3 months in the future.
i.e. Mr White owes Mr Black £100 and must pay him in 3 months time.
However, Mr Black needs some money now.
So he sells the Bill of Exchange, at a discount, to Mr Jacobs
i.e. Mr Jacobs gives Mr Black £80 now in return for the Bill of Exchange
Mr White must now pay Mr Jacobs £100 in 3 months time.
On larger Bills of Exchange Mr Black may get his money in stages.
To put this in perspective there is a case involving Edward Lawrence Levy where he regularly charges 60% for discounting a bill (we don’t know over what period).
Also, it is Mr Jacobs who is now responsible for getting the money from Mr White
Prosecutions
Moses Jacobs features in a number of cases where he appears to be a legal clerk or solicitor.
I feel that we ought to review the legal system of the times.
Until the later part of the 19th century most prosecutions were ‘private prosecutions’ in that it was up to the victim to bring the supposed culprit to court, not the police.
Remember that England didn’t have a police force until 1829 and that was only for London.
So, when two people had a case to argue they would either prosecute it themselves or employ someone else to do it for them. Some of the people employed to prosecute the case had little or no legal training, like Moses.
It was also a time of ‘ambulance chasers’ – Lawyers (using the word very loosely) would try and persuade someone to prosecute another and offer their services. If they could persuade the plaintiff to pay a retainer then they could prosecute on their behalf and charge a fee for doing so. There is at least one case where the plaintiff denies retaining Moses and so doesn’t want to pay the bill!
Julius Sussmann
There is a possibility that Julius’ parents were Adolph and Bertha and that Bertha’s mother in law was Buna Ahrens
Phil found this on Ancestry in the 1867 census for Mecklenburg-Schwerin
The following link should take you to the page if you have Ancestry World Wide (I’m afraid I don’t)
If anyone does go there could you let me have a copy of the scan please?
Moss Benjamin
Gerry Newnham found the following entry in Berger:
MOSS BENJAMIN
Death 1.9.1878 at 11 St George’s Circus, NATHANIEL, beloved son of MOSS & HANNAH BENJAMIN, age 1 year & 10 months
Now this implies that Moss had a child that we didn’t know about.
I can be reasonably certain that it is the right family because the address fits perfectly with their address in 1881.
However, this child, Nathaniel, would have been born in 1876 whereas Moss didn’t marry Hannah until 1878. So was married before? Or did they have a child before they married?
Moss Benjamin is also known as David Moss Benjamin
Any suggestions would be welcome.
