Arthur Cohen : a Memoir

Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ARTHUR COHEN. ARTHUR COHEN A MEMOIR BY HIS DAUGHTER FOR HIS DESCENDANTS LONDON BICKERS & SON, Ltd. CHARLES STREET, HAYMARKET, S.W. 1919 London Printed by Strakgewavs & Sons Tower Street, Cambridge Circus, W.C. 2 — c n INTRODUCTION. TN attempting to write a short account or my father, I am impelled by the wish that his descendants should have some impression ot a very remarkable man. The task is a difficult one, because the outward con- ditions of his life were in no way exciting ; he was, moreover, a man who was not given to enlarge on his experiences outward or inward, past or present, and naturally the time when these would have been most vivid was before I could appreciate them; and later on, he seldom discoursed to me on the obscure topics that were engrossing him—law, mathematics, philosophy and not even much on politics. My mother, who, when he embarked on his political career, would often talk of writing his life, was always the chief recipient of his ideas and aspirations, and would no doubt have been able to give many more characteristic anecdotes of him and of his surroundings, and could have traced the development of his thoughts and ideals in a way that is impossible to one belonging to a younger generatFon. But a yet younger generation may be interested in hearing some of the every-day details of the people from whom they are descended, as well as the manners of a past time, for it is already ninety years since my father was born. V i.'.!.26039 INTRODUCTION. 1 have always been a lover of memoirs, and even in the most uneventful have found a satisfaction in coming across the name of some one I have known or heard about, like meeting an acquaintance in a crowd ; and therefore it seems to me that a memoir, however im- perfectly written, of a man who was great in character and of repute among the men of his own generation cannot fail to interest some of his grandchildren and their children. I have tried to gather together not only recollections of my father from his relations and friends, but also the opinion of him expressed by some of the men with whom he worked, and where I could I have let him speak for himself, either in his letters or in the quotations which he collected from his favourite authors. The result is a series of impressions and recollections written down just as they occurred to me, and not an ordered biography ; and it will not be satisfactory to those who wish to obtain a real insight into his work, the reason of his great reputation as a lawyer, or the progress of his political and philosophical opinions. All I can hope is to give some picture of him as he appeared to his children and to those about him, with a faint background of the people among whom he moved, and of the chief events of his long life. Lucy Cohen. VI Arthur Cohen. CHAPTER I. MY father was born on November i8th, 1829, at Wyndham Place, London. Three reminis- cences of his may serve to remind one how far back his boyhood reached. The first was that of his being taken by his mother to see Rachel act ; he could well recall her small, insignificant figure, but as the play proceeded, the magnificence of her eyes and presence. Another was that of an execution which his brother went to see, but to which he refused to go, saying that * it was a disgusting spectacle.' And the last was his familiarity with the figure of the old Duke of Welling- ton, whom he used to see riding down Piccadilly, and whose fijneral procession he also saw. It could be said that the best blood of Anglo-Jewry was blended in him, that of the Askenazim and Sephar- dini : his father, Benjamim Cohen, being a member of the great synagogue in Duke's Place ; while his mother, Justina Montefiore, and her ancestors worshipped near by in the ancient synagogue of the Spanish and Portu- guese Jews in Bevis Marks. His grandfather, Levy Barent Cohen (i 740-1 808), came to London from Amsterdam some time previous to 1778, when we find him settled as a merchant of standing. In fact, the founder of the London branch of the Rothschild family came to London with an introduction to him and eventually married his daughter. Amersfoort, in Holland, was the home of the Cohen family, where they played an important part both in ARTHUR COHEN. the affairs of the town and of their community. There still stand two houses which are known to have be- longed to two of their ancestors, one of which is now the Town Hall. In the other house one of them entertained the then Prince of Orange, and later sheltered him when hiding from his enemies ; the Prince gave him his portrait and a silver inkstand, which were afterwards presented to the town of Amersfoort, and they can now be seen in the Town Hall there. Levy Barent Cohen was twice married. The well- known Communal workers Lionel, Alfred, Benjamin, and Nathaniel were descended from his first wife. My father was his grandson by his second wife, Lydia, who had four sons and five daughters. The eldest son, Benjamin, was my father's father (178 9- 1867), and his (i 800-1 mother was Justina Montefiore 873) ; she was the youngest daughter of Joseph Elias Montefiore, and of Rachel, daughter of Abraham Mocatta. The Monte- fiores were an Italian family who settled in London in 1758. The Mocattas were one of the earliest Jewish families living in England after the re-establishment of the Jews by Cromwell in 1653. It is possible that my father's courtly manners may have come from his Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian forbears on his mother's side. Benjamin Cohen, his father, was a bill-broker ot some repute, and had close business connections with the Rothschild firm, though he was not a member of it. He was not a brilliant man in any way, but a man of strict integrity and much respected in the City. I should doubt his having ever studied or read much. The books which we inherited from him are books which no gentleman's library should be without, and which not so very many of their owners read. But all that came to us from those grandparents was of a good solid character, and although not in any way artistic, bears the stamp of quality. My grandfather's wine 2 LEVY HARENT COHEN. ARTHUR COHEN. was celebrated, and my father would enjoy giving his friends 1848 port that had come to him from his father. My grandfather had also a fine collection of snuff-boxes and medals. He bought Asgyll House on the bank of the river at Richmond, where his sons came down for the week-ends, and here he lived till his death. At Asgyll my grandparents gave delightful garden-parties before they were as much the fashion as they now are. I have been told that the old Duke of Sussex, Queen Victoria's uncle, used to dine at Asgyll, and that my grandmother could have known all the county people, but that with a mixture of pride and shyness, which descended to the next generation, she had held herself aloof rather than risk a snub from some one of anti-Jewish prejudice. You can see the house as you travel by train to Richmond on the London and South-Western Railway ; it is on the left-hand side of the railway just before you cross the bridge over the river, and it is easily recog- nised by the two stone stags, copied from the family crest, which surmount the gate posts. Lady Mathew, widow of the Lord Justice, who spent the happy years of her early married life at Richmond, still remembers her husband pointing out my father to her as a handsome young man, ' one of the most promising men at ' the Bar ! My grandfather was a stiff, reserved man, very particular about outward appearances ; almost my only remembrance concerning him is that of our mother anxiously surveying the tips of our white gloves to see that there were no holes in them to offend his puncti- lious eyes, before we paid an awe-struck visit to him in his drawing-room at Brighton, where he sat with one gouty leg supported on a stool ; for my grandparents also had a house at Brighton, and here they could be seen daily driving in their barouche up and down the parade. My grandmother was a handsome, lively woman, of whom many stories were told ; but she, too, died when 3 ARTHUR COHEN. we were still young. She also had a somewhat un- bending manner with children. My mother used to tell of her astonishment when first introduced to the family on noticing that her mother-in-law did not kiss her sons on greeting them. But we rather liked going to see her, as she invariably bestowed on us fancy biscuits, which, however, had to be carried home uneaten lest we should drop crumbs on her well-swept carpet ; and a sovereign neatly wrapped up in white paper used from time to time to be given to our faithful nurse. My grandmother would hardly ever travel by train. Once, when called to her daughter's death-bed, she did so venture, and then is said to have offered the guard five guineas to have the train driven slower ; when encountering the perils of the tunnels, my grandfather had to submit to violent pinches from his terrified wife.

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