The Sephardim of England

Now that the laws allowing Jews to settle in England had been changed, more Portuguese and Spanish Jews  made their way to London, thriving in their new environment, and establishing fınally in 1701, the Bevis Marks Synagogue.

Interior of Bevis Marks Synagogue. From Wikipedia.

The most famous offspring of this community was to be Benjamin Disraeli.  

(See: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/uk.html for more).

It seems likely, though not certain, given their long association with the Bevis Marks Synagogue that they were of Portuguese, rather than Spanish origin. 

The next major wave of Jewish immigration took place in latter part of the nineteenth century, as Jews fled from the Russian pogroms. By the time Amelia Gertrude Wombwell and Jacob Valentine got married, Jewish communities were heavily concentrated around Whitechapel and Spitalfields, exactly where the Valentine family seemed to be conducting their business. Jacob trained up to be a tailor, but both his father, Benjamin and one of his brothers were working as cigar makers, one of the most popular professions of the Jewish community. 

Whether Benjamin Valentine chose to pay a visit to George Wombwell junior for an inter-faith summit meeting as this unusual courtship developed is another matter. And whether he would have got much out of George beyond anecdotes about elephant and tigers another question again. What is unquestionable however is that the economies of neither family would appear to have been in very good shape.