Sydney Montagu Samuel

Sydney Montagu Samuel was the son of Moss and Eliza (Samuel) Samuel. Eliza was the daughter of Edwin Louis and Clara (Yates) Samuel. He never married and he died on 21 June 1884 on his 34 birthday while a patient at the Lunatic Asylum – Munster House in Fulham. He had been admitted there on 17 November 1882. [See – UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, (1846-1921) for Sydney Montagu Samuel below.]

Morning Post Wednesday 25 June 1884
DEATHS

SAMUEL – on the 21st inst., Sydney Montagu Samuel, aged thirty -six.

The chart below illustrates where Sydney fits in with other members of the Samuel family:

The Jewish Chronicle    25 July 1884
THE LATE SYDNEY M. SAMUEL

THE LATE SYDNEY M. SAMUEL.— Dr. Herzberg, Director of the Jewish Orphanage, Jerusalem writes : Your issue of the 27th June, brought to the Holy City the sad tidings of the demise of Mr. Sydney Samuel. Allow me in the name of the many well-wishers, nay, even friends, which the late gentlemen gained amongst us, three years and half ago, during his too short stay at Jerusalem, to say a few words in his memory. He lived at our house, being introduced by Mr. Valero, as there existed at the time no Jewish hotel in town. He soon became a favourite, in particular with the children, who instinctively appreciated his frank and genial manner. He spent, I dare say, ten happy days at Zion. The weather was beautiful, his health excellent, and the whole town eager to honour him, not from common material motives, for he greatly discouraged beggary, but from a strange mixture of tenderness and gratefulness that moved the heart of our brethren when they saw one so young and so gifted honour his people and himself by reverently observing the sacred customs of Israel. It was on Saturday night when he left, and 20 persons had assembled to wish him God-speed. We accompanied him through the garden to the Jaffa road where his dragoman was in waiting with the horses, when he dashed away, waving his hat and followed by the hearty shouts of the crowd riding as it were-into the dark of a sweet November night. We little thought that so much youth and energy would be prematurely laid low so soon. Not that I had been without my misgivings. I had remarked that he occasionally allowed himself to be governed by an irrational disquietude, as it seemed unbecoming one so intelligent and good. Thus, when he had been to Hebron, after having passed almost the whole day on horseback, on a very bad road, as he had done also the preceding night, he returned late in the evening, and having supped, went to his room occupying himself to write down the impressions of his trip. It was three o’clock in the morning when he lay down to rest, and at eight he came down already to amuse our-breakfast table with the reading of his article for the Chronicle. When I reproached him with this reckless waste of health he laughed away my fears. Alas ! they were but too well founded.

The Jewish Chronicle   13 November1891

Sydney Montagu Samuel was another young man whose life was too full of excitement and success. We should have had a dramatist of high rank among us had he been spared. Perhaps, however, his future development would have been as a financier, for his versatility was equal to his talent.

Adapted from The Jewish Encyclopedia and Wikipedia
Sydney Montagu Samuel (1848 – 1884)

Sydney Montagu Samuel was born on 21 June 1848 in London. His mother was Eliza Samuel (c. 1828–1895), the daughter of Edwin Louis Samuel and his father was Moss S. Samuel (c. 1820–1877), a Birmingham-born jeweller and cigar dealer. His maternal uncle was Samuel Montagu, 1^st Baron Swaythling, and he was a first cousin of Stuart Montagu Samuel and Herbert Louis Samuel.

Sydney was educated at University College, London. For upward of fifteen years Samuel threw himself into communal work with much zeal and earnestness. In 1878 he became honorary secretary to the Board of Guardians, and wrote its annual reports from 1878 to 1882. He held a similar office in the Jewish Association for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge, and assisted in establishing the Jewish Working Men’s Club. In 1879 he journeyed to the East and made investigations into the moral and physical condition of the Jews in the Holy Land and in other parts of the Orient. The result was embodied in his “Jewish Life in the East.” He contributed also to the general press and wrote some very graceful verses.

Samuel displayed much activity in theatrical matters, was a ready adapter of plays, and wrote the English libretto of “Piccolino,” produced at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1879. A comedy by him entitled “A Quiet Pipe” was produced at the Folly Theatre in 1880. In collaboration, he translated Victor Hugo’s “La Lyre et la Harpe” into English verse for a cantata by Saint-Saëns, produced at the Birmingham Musical Festival in 1879.

Samuel was a broker of the city of London, and was engaged in the banking establishment of his relatives, Samuel Montagu & Co. An authority on finance, he contributed to the “Examiner”; and wrote for the “Times” an annual survey of the course of exchange. His health broke down under the strain of his multifarious exertions.

[Overwork took a toll on his health, and he was admitted to the Munster House Lunatic Asylum in Fulham, Middlesex, on 17 November 1882 and he died there in 1884, on his 34th birthday. His early death points to the possibility that he took his own life – a not too uncommon event in the Samuel family].

What follows are some reviews of works published by Sydney Montagu Samuel that appeared in various newspapers during his lifetime.

Jewish Chronicle – 19 February 1869

BOARD OF GUARDIANS. — We are extremely pleased to see a copy of a circular before us that the statistical section, long-ago contemplated by our Board of Guardians for the Relief of Jewish poor, has now been fully organised. The statistical committee is composed of Messrs. Lewis Emanuel, Benjamin Kisch, Sydney Montagu Samuel, and Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. The circular, which is addressed to the several committees of our benevolent institutions, asks for the kind of information we have seen in the admirable table lately published in the Times. It is scarcely necessary for us to point out the usefulness of statistics of this kind. They must form the basis of all organisations. We therefore have no doubt but that the committee will instruct their secretaries to furnish the Board Guardians with all the information they can supply.

Daily News · Wednesday, May 25, 1870
SYDNEY MONTAGU SAMUEL ADMITTED AS A STOCK BROKER

The Jewish Chronicle   27 October 1877
DEATH OF MOSS SAMUEL, THE FATHER OD SYDNEY MONTAGU SAMUEL

On the 23rd inst. at 27, Huntley-street, Bedford-square, Mr. MOSS SAMUEL, late of Birmingham, aged 81. Deeply lamented by all who knew him.
[Moss Samuel married Eliza Samuel the daughter of Louis and Henrietta (Israel) Samuel. The son of Moss and Eliza was Sydney Montagu Samuel]

1879 REVIEW OF “PICCOLINO”

The romantic opera of Piccolino by Guiraud which Mr Sydney Samuel has discovered and adapted for the English stage, by having been the original librettists, was given for the first time at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, last Saturday night, with great success.

The following is an extract from Saunders Irish Daily News: “All the. world, social, critical, and artistic, came to the Gaiety on Saturday night, when Quiraud’s new opera, Piccolino, was for the first time presented in English dress to any audience. No more critical audience could possibly have sat in judgment on a new piece, and I venture to say the unanimous verdict of the house was that Piccolino was a decided, indeed, a brilliant, success. The original libretto of MM. Victorien Sardou and Nuittter has been worked into its present form by Mr. Sydney Samuel, and I must say his work is more than that of the mere translator or adapter. The writing is bold and vigorous, touched with a free hand; the dialogue worked out with a good deal of dash and verve about it, and neither the fun nor the pathos that Victorien Sardou ~ blends together in so strange a fashion is lost to us. It is simply, skillfully, and artistically transmuted.

Piccolino is more than a romantic opera as it is called in the bills; its plot and purpose would form the motif of a drama, for underneath all its sparkle and brilliancy there runs a story of vivid dramatic interest and power. “We learn with satisfaction that the London public will, early in the season, have an opportunity of judging for themselves …..

On the following Wednesday Mr. Carl Rosa produced M. Guiraud’s ‘ Piccolino, …  The libretto is, we know, founded by M. Victorien Sardou on an old play of his, and the risky situations of the original have been very much toned down by Mr. Sydney Samuel, the adapter. The English librettist has also largely compressed the dialogue,…  . Mr. Samuel is a sound French scholar, his dialogue is as interesting as his verses are elegant, and altogether his part of the work could not be better done …. Our own opinion is that the work ought to have been distinctly beneath the notice of Mr. Carl Rosa, under whose management we are accustomed to expect far better stuff. The audience on the first night was very slight, and the opera, it must be confessed, proved a failure.

The Jewish Chronicle   23 January 1880
“A QUIET PIPE,” an original domestic “scene” for two characters, written some years since by Miss Cowen and Mr. Sydney M. Samuel will shortly be played for the first time, at the Gaiety Theatre, by Mr. F. H. Macklin, and Miss Blanche Henri. For the lady, Mr. F. H, Cowen has expressly composed a song, the words of which are by Mr. Samuel.

The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper · Saturday, 19 February 1881
REVIEW OF SYDNEY MONTAGU SAMUEL’S BOOK: JEWISH LIFE IN THE EAST

Liverpool Albion – Saturday 02 April 1881|
JEWISH LIFE IN THE EAST.

A slim volume of 200 pages, thus entitled, and issued by Messrs. Kagan Paul, contains sketches first published in the “Jewish Chronicle,” by Mr. Sydney Montagu Samuel, a Jewish gentleman who in 1879 made a visit of three months to the Holy Land. The work is characteristically Jewish in style, and, at a modest distance recalls the fascinating stories told by Joseph Wolff. The author displays much kindly feeling even when he scolds his brethren for deficiencies in the synagogue service in various cities, just as we might in a friendly way criticize certain preachers or precentors. Credit for making the best of things may readily be given to a traveller who describes himself as “refreshed beyond measure” by bathing in the Deed Sea (p. 44). Our feelings, on a similar occasion, induced us to gallop off, in very slender attire, to get a subsequent wash in the Jordan. “Deputations” from Societies for the Conversion of the Jews will be glad to use this book at public meetings. Speaking of the agents of the London society Mr. Samuel says :– “Their chief object appears to be to prove that Christian charity is more merciful and better organised than the Jewish, and indeed, they go far, at present, to prove that fact. “Here I have seen 132 Jewish souls in Jerusalem—the city of the Jews—in the clutches of the Conversionists.” Shortly after he goes on to commend a more thorough education of the young as the only safeguard against the proselytising efforts of the Christians. Barely, never was there a city so over-institutioned as Jerusalem: few of these Institutions are self-supporting. In the boys’ boarding school the author found 24 boarders, all Jews. This school costs the society in London £343 5s. 5d, annually. From the author’s figures it seems that the London society alone spends about £5,500 yearly in Jerusalem. Mr, Samuel made the journey for the improvement of his health, and has written a book which is quite worth glancing through.

Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette – Saturday 23 April 1881

Mr Sidney M. Samuel has arranged with Mr Wm. Black to dramatise his novel “Sunrise,” under his own supervision for production, with the title of “Nathalushka,” at leading London theatre early in 1832.

East Anglian Daily Times – Saturday 07 May 1881
LITERATURE AND ART.

(From the Academy.) A forthcoming number of the Jewish Chronicle will contain a story in verse, of some length, by Mr. Sydney Montagu Samuel. It is founded on a not too well known legend of the Talmud.

Pall Mall Gazette – Saturday 07 May 1881
BOOK REVIEW

“Jewish Life in the East.” By Sydney Montagu Samuel. (C. Kegan Paul and Co.) In this little volume a Jew tells us what he has seen of the circumstances of his people in Egypt and in Palestine. ” Our people,” he says, “are infected with that dislike for manual labour, and that preference for earning their living with their heads rather than their hands, which forms at once the strength of our upper and the destruction of our lower classes.” This is a significant sentence, and it has an important hearing on the condition of the Western as well as the Eastern Jews. There is a special interest in the account of the Jerusalem Jews. They number, it seems, about twelve thousand, and are generally in a condition of miserable poverty. Whatever other causes for this there may be, one certainly is the pauperizing influence of charity – the “Haluka” or portion which a Jerusalem Jew looks to as his due from his brethren abroad. It is interesting to compare with this the frequent references in the New Testament to alms sent to the “poor saints at Jerusalem.” Mr. Samuel y estimates the whole amount sent to Palestine at something between forty and fifty thousand pounds per annum. The Ashkenazim Jews receive – between £4 and £6 per head per annum, every member of a family receiving alike. On the delicate subject of the action of the “conversionists,” the writer expresses himself with energy but without ill-feeling, he is of course absolutely hostile, and naturally speaks of the insidious arts and interested kindness,” but he fully recognizes the good feeling and tact with which this work is carried on. This, indeed, makes it seem to hin the more dangerous, and he exhorts his co-religionists to counteract it. The conversionist agencies will, it is probable, be no little encouraged by what he says.

The American Israelite   2 September 1881

Bristol Mercury – Tuesday 29 May 1883
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TO THE JEWS.

The 68th Anniversary of the Bristol and Clifton auxiliary of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews was celebrated yesterday at the Victoria rooms, Clifton, The morning gathering was presided over by the Rev. Talbot A. L. Greaves, Rev, W. Saunders presented the repost …

It is sometimes useful and instructive to see ourselves as we are seen from an opponent’s standpoint, and your committee therefore furnishes an extract, from a remarkable work entitled, “Jewish Life in the East,” by Mr. Sydney Montagu Samuel, a highly cultivated and most intelligent Jew. Mr. Samuel writes –

“Amongst the one hundred and thirty-eight servants of this society are no less than seventy-six converted Jews, who are ministers of the Church of England. The girls’ school of the society is a thoroughly good specimen of an English school, the classrooms remarkably resembling those at home. Attached to this school is a workroom for Jewish women, where 22 of them were being instructed in sewing. In an enclosure, where there is a thoroughly English looking church, is the boys’ boarding school, costing £843 5s. 5d. annually to the society. Here I found 24 boarders, all Jews, or of Jewish parents. All looked exceedingly clean, well dressed, and bright looking. They are taught English, Arabic, Hebrew, French, and German. Their ages are from seven to 14. When their education is completed, they are either restored to their parents, or, if not, situations are found for them. Both schools are models of what schools should be, and are under the superintendence of an English certified teacher, who assured me that no attempt was made to baptise the boys unless, at 19 or 20 years old, they desired to be baptized of their own free choice, and can prove their knowledge of the Christian religion.”

Ilfracombe Chronicle – Saturday 01 December 1883
CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS

With reference to the direct of London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, the speaker instanced …. the statements of a cultivated Jew Mr Sydney Montagu Samuel with reference to the work of the Society in Constantinople in Jerusalem who said the work was to be feared and fought not treated with contempt and if it was to be met at all it could only be by energy, organization, large funds, and a strong conviction of right This from honourable opponent the strongest possible testimony to the value of the efforts made by the Society