Alexander, L[evy]. Memoirs of the Life and Commercial Connections, Public and Private, of the Late Benj. Goldsmid, Esq. of Roehampton; Containing a Cursory View of the Jewish Society and Manners
AUCTION 39 |
Thursday, April 03rd,
2008 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters & Graphic Art
Lot 27
(ANGLO-JUDAICA)
Alexander, L[evy]. Memoirs of the Life and Commercial Connections, Public and Private, of the Late Benj. Goldsmid, Esq. of Roehampton; Containing a Cursory View of the Jewish Society and Manners
London: Printed by the Author 1808
Est: $700 - $1,000
PRICE REALIZED $700
Benjamin Goldsmid (1755-1808), a prominent financier in the City of London during the French revolutionary wars, was also an officer of the Great Synagogue and a founder of the Jews' Hospital. He was a close friend of the sons of King George III and of Lord Nelson. However a severe fall from his financial heights resulted in Goldsmid committing suicide, hanging himself by a silk chord in his bedroom. The Coroner ruled that "the manner of his death proceeded from the infirmity of his mental faculty" (p.133). (Nonetheless, see next Lot).
The author of this biography, Levy Alexander (son of Alexander Alexander, translator of the Hebrew liturgy into English), digresses to make several unsalutary remarks concerning Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell (pp.133-134). The public quarrel between the two men, which first erupted in 1802 (the year of Hirschell's appointment), would continue for several years. See H.A. Simons, Forty Years a Chief Rabbi: The Life and Times of Solomon Hirschell (1980), pp.80-82