JEWISH EAST END OF LONDON PHOTO GALLERY & COMMENTARY

London's East End Synagogues, cemeteries and more......

My personal journey through the Jewish East End of London

 

Jewish Walking tours with Phil - explore your Jewish roots

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The Novo Sephardic cemetery, Mile End....and the 1882 fire at the Spanish and Portuguese orphanage, Bevis Marks.  Henry Nunes Martinez, z'l, no longer forgotten.

Members of the Jewish East End Celebration Society and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain got together in August 2012 for a clean up of this little known cemetery, a cemetery which tells the story of the UK's Sephardic community.  For me the most exciting part of our clean up day was the revealing of long forgotten inscriptions as decades of moss and debris were scrubbed away.  One inscription in particular made a profound impression as it emerged from the moss and grime: the story of a 10 year old boy who perished in a fire at the Spanish and Portuguese orphanage, once attached to Bevis Marks synagogue.  The Jewish Chronicle reported the incident as follows:

 

.....at about 11.30pm on Tuesday night Mr Lewis Levy, the master of the institution which adjoins the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue was standing at the door when he suddenly perceived a strong smell of something burning...sparks were descending from the upper part of the building where 13 boys were sleeping....they rushed to the bedrooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors...aroused the inmates...brought the children to safety in the streets....the fire brigade promptly attended...owing to the excitement and confusion the firemen were informed all the inmates had been safely removed...the Reverend Rose, one of the ministers of the congregation, found to his horror that one lad was missing...before it was possible to give an alarm one of the firemen came down bearing in his arms the missing lad who was promptly removed on an engine to the London Hospital where life was pronounced to be extinct...the deceased had been about 18 months in the institution and is spoken of as having been an intelligent and well behaved lad.

The lad whose tragic end is described above was Henry Nunes Martinez.  His grave is below:

Sacred to the memory of Henry, son of David and Elizabeth Nunes Martinez who lost his life in the fire which broke out at the Spanish and Portuguese Jews orphanage 11th Kislev 5643, 21st November 1882 aged 10½ years.

 

Clive Simmonds has written with further information on Henry Nunes Martinez