Samuel Montagu

Samuel Montagu started life as a poor boy from a Jewish immigrant family in Liverpool. He ended life as Lord Swaythling in the City of London and left an estate worth around £100 million in today's money. He achieved his success by setting up his own company as a City broker, specialising in the world silver market. The contribution to the success of the City of London in Victorian times had a great deal to do with Britain's successful balance of trade, and Montagu's company was recognized as a vital factor in this achievement. Another of Montagu's interests in life was helping the mass of immigrants from Eastern Europe who had fled the pogroms in the Russian Empire. He never forgot that he came from a poor emigrant family himself and he always found the time to help those less fortunate than himself. He died over 100 years ago and is only remembered for founding the Federation of Synagogues and buying the land for the Federation cemetery in Edmonton. An extremely pious Jew, he practiced the dictates of the religion punctiliously. The leaders of Victorian Jewry were Sir Moses Montefiore, Lord Rothschild and Samuel Montagu; Montagu deserves to be equally remembered for all the good he did.