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Jacob and Joseph D’Aguilar Samuda of
Crossness, Tower Hamlets and Cubitt Town.
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Joseph
D'Aguilar Samuda - from a Vanity Fair cartoon |
A recent visit to the Crossness
pumping station, located on a windswept corner of the Thames in
South East London, revealed an unexpected 19th Century
East London Jewish connection. Located at the entrance to the
pumping station’s beam engine house is a brass plaque commemorating
the 1865 opening of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s masterpiece. On the
plaque are the names of members of the Metropolitan Board of Works
and distinguished guests who had attended the opening of this
landmark solution to London’s sewage disposal crisis.
Among the
names is Sir Joseph D’Aguilar Samuda. Sir Joseph’s lineage is
interesting. His great grandfather, Abraham Samuda, was a secret
Jew and physician to the King of Portugal who in 1748 escaped the
inquisition by fleeing from Lisbon to Holland with his wife on board
a British ship. Shortly after their arrival in
Holland his wife gave birth to their son Jacob. By 1749 Jacob’s
parents were both dead and the infant Jacob was sent to London to become an
inmate of the Portuguese orphanage school at Bevis Marks synagogue.
Subsequently Jacob married well and his son Abraham became a
merchant at the East and West India companies. Abraham married Joy D’Aguilar and they had a large family, including two sons: Jacob
born in 1811, and Joseph born in 1813. Jacob was an engineer, who
in 1832 with his younger brother Joseph founded the engineering firm
of Samuda Brothers. Amongst their achievements was the invention of
the atmospheric railway system. In 1843 the brothers entered the
shipbuilding and marine engine business. A setback occurred in 1844
when Jacob was killed by an explosion during a trial run of one of
his engines onboard his boat the Gypsy Queen. An inscription on
Jacob’s tombstone in the Novo Sephardic cemetery, Mile End,
described him as the first Jewish engineer. Not withstanding
Jacob’s death, Samuda Brothers became one of the most eminent
shipbuilders of the day. From premises in Cubitt town on the Isle
of Dogs the firm constructed iron steamships for the navy and
merchant marine of the UK and other countries. Many of these boats
were built under Joseph Samuda's personal supervision.
An article published by the
Jewish Chronicle in 1907 states that in 1856 Joseph Samuda
and his wife (Louisa) and family were seduced by social
ambitions to forsake their ancestral faith. In 1860 Joseph
Samuda became treasurer of the Institute of Naval Architects and
later its vice president. He then became a member of the Institute
of Civil Engineers and from 1860 to 1865 a member of the
Metropolitan Board of Works, in which capacity he attended the
formal 1865 opening by the Prince of Wales of the Crossness Pumping
Station. From 1865 to 1868 he was Liberal M.P. for Tavistock in
Devon and from 1868 to 1880 he was Liberal M.P. for Tower Hamlets.
He died in 1885. Samuda Brothers are remembered in Cubitt Town where
the Samuda housing estate stands on the site of their former business
premises.
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Crossness Pumping Station |
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Joseph D'Aguilar
Samuda's name on the 1865 commemorative opening plaque
of Crossness Pumping Station |
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The glorious
interior of Crossness Pumping Station that Joseph
D'Aguilar Samuda would have witnessed |
