Order of Service on the Occasion of Laying the Foundation Stone of the North London Synagogue, by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.

AUCTION 53 | Thursday, December 08th, 2011 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts Autograph Letters & Graphic Art

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Lot 34
(ANGLO-JUDAICA)

Order of Service on the Occasion of Laying the Foundation Stone of the North London Synagogue, by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.

(pp. 5). Ex-library, foxed. Original gilt-tooled boards, worn. 8vo

London: Wertheimer, Lea 1867

Est: $700 - $900
PRICE REALIZED $950
19th-century development of the Barnsbury section of Islington as an elegant, tranquil district of brick and stucco townhouses attracted a prospering middle class of trades-people, many Jews among them, who worked and lived in the adjacent, less salubrious manufacturing district of Clerkenwell and the nearby square mile of the City of London itself. A congregation formed there in 1858, meeting in rented spaces until a synagogue was completed ten years later. In a service conducted by the Chief Rabbi, Nathan Marcus Adler, the cornerstone was laid and a speech given by Ferdinand de Rothschild of the Vienna branch of the family, art collector and future builder of Waddesdon Manor. The remarkable synagogue, "in the modern Italian style," with its iron pillars, marble colums, and geometric stained glass, was described in the Illustrated London News as "original in treatment throughout" and a "great credit on the architect, Mr. H.H. Collins." Collins' other commissions included the Borough Synagogue (1867) and the synagogues at Chatham (1869) and Bristol (1871). Suburban flight meant that in 1958 the congregation was merged into the Dalston Synagogue, which was merged into the Stoke Newington Synagogue in 1967, which was merged into the Hackney Synagogue in 1976. The Lofting Road synagogue building was subsequently demolished. For more, see: Bergerman, History of the North London Synagogue (1948)