The Joshuas

 The following is the edited text of an e-mail from Sue Woolf to the site, sent on 3 November 2004. The details include sources for information entered into the Family Tree.

I was born Susan Maud Barnard on 4 May 1943 in Kentish Town, London (birth cert) and have one sister Elizabeth Ernestine Barnard born 28 February 1945 and just one child, a son born in 1982.  My career included many years as a chartered accountant followed by a few years as a lecturer in further education colleges.  My sister has been a criminologist, university lecturer and charity administrator and is currently a civil servant.

My husband Gordon Israel Woolf born 13 December 1926 Birmingham, the son of Leo Woolf and Eileen Rosenthal.  We were married at Hertsmere Progressive synagogue, Elstree, Hertfordshire, England on 16 June 1985.(ketuba & marriage cert) Until retirement he was financial director of an international electronics group, having qualified as both a chartered accountant and cost & management accountant and worked for some years as a management consultant

My father Henry Dan Barnard b 26 January 1901 Hampstead, London (birth certificate) died 28 April 1994 Roehampton, London (death cert & probate); m Louise Salzmann on 29 January 1942 at the New West End synagogue, London (ketuba & marriage cert).  One of the first students at Oxford university to graduate in PPE, he worked in the family scrap metal business for a short time and during WW2, had also been a publisher and later a chartered accountant.  My mother was a court dressmaker  while she lived in Austria.

I have no reliable information about my mother, who is still alive, except that she was born Luise Salzmann on 4 February 1910 in Lemberg, Austro Hungarian empire nowadays known as Lviv in Ukraine.  She was brought up in Vienna and came to England as a refugee domestic worker in 1939.  

My father had one sister Phyllis Annette Barnard  - b 30 June 1897 d 1970. m 1917 at Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London to Ellis Saleh Manasseh d London 1962 aged 85 so he must have been born in 1879 either in India or Singapore.  They had 5 children of whom 2 are living - in age order  Esther Maureen Ellis Manasseh (known as Maureen), Saleh David Ellis Manasseh (known as David), Roseann Ellis Manasseh, Jennifer Ellis Manasseh and Jonathan Ellis Manasseh.

My father’s parents m 10 June 1896 at the Central Synagogue,London, were Daniel Henry Barnard known as Dan and Maud Ethel Jacobs (ketuba).  He was born 9 February 1867 at 32 Lambeth Walk, Lambeth, Surrey, actually part of London, the fourth surviving son of Henry Benjamin Barnard and Leah Julia Harris  who married at Central synagogue,london in 1859 (ketuba & marriage cert).  Daniel worked all his life in the family business HB Barnard founded by his father and was a founding member of the London Metal Exchange.  Henry Benjamin Barnard was the youngest child of Samuel Barnard and Louisa Benjamin born approx 1834 in Chatham, Kent. He died 15 May 1896 in St Giles London.  His parents were married at the Chatham synagogue in 1822 (Ketuba).  Samuel was the 4th son of Rabbi Daniel Barnard and Sippy (Zipporah) Levy, who had 7 sons and 3 daughters still living when their mother died in 1836. I’ll tell you more about their youngest son Asher who emigrated to Australia.  Both Louisa and Samuel were born in England. He in approx 1795 and died Chatham 1837.  She was born in Bishopsgate,London in approx 1795 and died in Islington, London on 6 July 1880. Henry Benjamin Barnard was immensely tall about 6ft 6 ins and a keen cricketer, playing for the Kent 2nd eleven.  Louisa Benjamin was known in the family as Louisa from Barbados; possibly she had been brought up there.

The Barnard family is huge and I find new ones every few weeks.  Originally I was only tracing descendants of Rabbi Daniel Barnard of Canterbury, England who died around 1815, but some of the Jewish Barnards in England are descended from Rabbi Alexander Barnard who died in 1819 and may have been a brother.  

My grandfather died 3 April 1937, and my grand-mother 29 September 1955.  She was born 13 December 1874 (strangely no entry in birth registers, but I have always known the date and it is confirmed by an announcement in the Jewish press) the youngest child of Isaac Jacobs and Rachel Joshua.  Rachel Joshua was born in London in 1837 (birth certificate). Her parents were Michael Joshua and Sarah Solomon who had married in 1826 (Great Synagogue marriages extract - GSME)

I have a list, probably written by Rachel, giving the birth dates of her many siblings. Joshua Michael Joshua 1 January 1827 [probably later that year] Betsey Joshua 25 September 1828 Moss Joshua 22 January 1830 Esther Joshua 9 February 1832 Samuel Joshua 15 February 1834 Julia Joshua 12 January 1836 Abraham Joshua 25 November 1840 Saul Joshua 25 June 1842 Susan Joshua 3 December 1843 Eva Joshua 3 February 1845 John Joshua 9 February 1847 Philip Joshua 8 July 1848 not on the list is Sarah Joshua born in London in 1839 - she probably died as a child. I am, pretty sure that all those before 1839 were born in London, no idea where Abraham was born; may have been at sea or in Mauritius.  Saul was born in Sydney (NSW register of births), Susan somewhere in Australia and the 3 youngest all in Adelaide.   Michael and Sarah and their children probably arrived in Sydney in 1840 where they lived for a while before settling in Adelaide.  Michael had been a butcher in England, but became a merchant in Australia mainly importing sugar from the family estates in Mauritius.  

Michael’s parents were Abraham Joshua, a fishmonger in the City of London.  He was born in Stepney east of the City in approx 1769 (census) and Sarah, whose father’s Hebrew name Isaac Solomon (great synagogue birth register).  They probably married before 1791 during the period for which there are no known records of the Great Synagogue.  Abraham died in Mile End in 1858 and Sarah died in the City in 1837.

Sarah Solomon, the mother of all the Joshua children was born in Aldgate, east of London in about 1806, the child of Samuel Moses Solomon and Betsy Moses who married in 1793 at the Great Synagogue (GSME).

Michael Joshua b Aldgate c1805 d Marylebone London 1887 (death cert) Sarah Joshua nee Solomon b Aldgate c1806 d Mayfair, London 1893 (death cert) Joshua Michael Joshua b 1827 City of london, unmarried, died 1896 Scarborough, Yorkshire Betsy Joshua b1828 d1886 possibly Melbourne married Charles Jacobs b 1818 d 1886 Melbourne (Victoria death register) they had 11 children of which I have details somewhere. Moss Joshua b1830 London d 1890 London  married Emma Slade 1879 she died in London in 1913 probably no children.  On census returns she frequently understated her age. Esther Joshua born 1832.  Bill & Gene Sheat are still trying to find her death. Married Solomon Lyon Marks in Adelaide in 1850.  He was born in London in 1827, the son of Lyon Juday Marks and Frances Levey, and died in 1875 in Cookstown,Queensland. Samuel (Sam) Joshua born London 1834 d Kensington,London 1907. In c1867 he married Maria Eberstadt who was born in Germany c1845.  they had 5 children of whom 1 son died aged 1 year.  Another son Albert Michael Joshua was murdered in London by his mistress in 1924 - very detailed reports of the inquest in “the Times” Julia Joshua b1836 d 1899 Wellington NZ married Alfred Abraham Barnett in London in 1857 (marriage cert). He was a son of Dayan Arie Barnett who was a Rabbi, talmud scholar and member of the Beth Din or Rabbinical court of the Chief Rabbi in London. Julia & Alfred had several children including Sir Louis Barnett, a famous NZ surgeon and Frederick Joshua Barnett who was governor of the Solomon Islands.

Then we come to my greatgrandmother Rachel Joshua born in Whitechapel in 1837, brought up in Australia and married in London in 1856 to Isaac Jacobs.  She had at least 12 children - 10 sons, of whom one died as a baby, and 2 daughters.  My grandmother Maud Ethel Jacobs was the youngest.  Rachel outlived many of her children dying in London in 1924, having been widowed since 1881.  In spite of all those children there were very few grandchildren.

I don’t know what happened to Sarah born in London in 1839. Abraham b 1840 d 1922 in London. In 1879 he married Eliza Coppins in London 1852-1917.  Abraham was a distiller of Australian brandy. Not sure if they had any children. Saul Joshua b Sydney 1842 dSouth Melbourne 1918 (victoria death register). In 1867 he married Ada Barrow Montefiore at the west London synagogue. She had been born in Adelaide c1850 one of the many daughters of Joseph Barrow Montefiore. 2 sons and a daughter were born in Mauritius and one son in Melbourne.  I have recently found marriages for all of them on the victoria government register together with births and marriages of children and grandchildren on the same source. Susan Joshua b1843 in Australia, d 1914 Ramsgate, Kent (West London synagogue burials - WLSb).  she married Edward Ferdinand Sichel in London in 1864.  He had been born in Frankfurt, Germany and brought to England by his father as a young child. He died in London in 1883(WLSb) For many years he had been a merchant in Australia and Mauritius and was in partnership with some of the Joshua brothers. The 3 daughters all married in London.  Adeline Edith Sichel b Marylebone 1865 (birth cert) married Frederic Lewis Nathan, who was a Captain in the British Army  and they had at least 3 sons.  Henrietta Sarah Sichel b Kensington 1866 d 1922 m Henry Straus Quixano Henriques in 1894.  Henry was a successful barrister and QC b 1866 Manchester d 1925. They had a son and daughter, possibly more children.  Their son Edward F Q Henriques b 1899 d 1965 was a solicitor who had 2 sons still living and a number of grandchildren.  The third daughter Violet  Amalia Sichel was born in South Yarra, Melbourne in 1868 (Victoria birth register) and married John Cimon Warburg in 1897.  Their son born in1899 was Frederic John Warburg the famous publisher of George Orwell. As for the son Jack Sylvester Sichel, also known as John and Joshua, he claimed to have been born in Melbourne in about 1871 and rumour has it that he was a serial bigamist. Only 3 more Joshuas to go! Eva born in Adelaide in 1845 married Samuel Lewis Nathan, a clockmaker in London in 1868.  He had been born in Whitechapel in about 1830 and died in London in 1895  They had 3 sons all born in London.  The second one, Cecil Saul Nathan born 1872 and an engineer, married a divorced lady, Anne Trehearne in 1902. John Joshua was also born in Adelaide, in 1847. In 1881 he was a stockbroker in England apparently married, according to the census, but I can’t find any record of the marriage, so she may have been a mistress.  He seems to have died in Burwood, NSW in 1928. And finally Philip born 1948 in Adelaide died 1923 in England. His first wife was Marie Sophie Sichel, a niece of Edward Ferdinand Sichel. They married in 1863 in London she died in 1903 leaving 4 daughter and a son.  the daughters included Joan born 1884 and Nelly born 1876 both in London.  Nelly married Bernhard Daniel Horkheimer and at some stage probably WW1 they changed their name to Hawke. They had 2 sons Harry Otto Gustave Hawke 1914-2001 (no idea where he was born or died) and David Hawke. Harry married a widow and had a son Christopher Hawke.  I don’t think that these are the same Hawkes as on your family tree.

Back to Asher the youngest son of Rabbi Daniel Barnard.  He was born in England about 1810 married Hannah Salomons in 1836 in the Hambro synagogue, London (syn records).  They had a child almost every year and moved home just as frequently until 1851/52 when they emigrated to Melbourne and thrived.  Asher died there in 1882 (newspaper cutting of obituary) and had been active in the foundation of 2 synagogues as well as successfully establishing a branch of a friendly society known as the Druids.  He was also the secretary of a Jewish philanthropic and welfare society.  One son, Daniel married Flora Salomons in London in 1871 but they soon returned to Melbourne where at least 5 children were born (Jewish Victorians 1871-1880 & vic gov birth records).  Asher’s son Benjamin died in Melbourne in 1868 of a painful illness (Jewish Victorians 1861-1870).  Asher’s sons Reuben and Jacob married Frances Beatrice Levy & Gertrude Deborah Levy in Melbourne in 1876 (vic gov marriage records).  Reuben and Frances had 9 children though one died as an infant.  So far i don’t know what happened to Asher’s other children.