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

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Jacob and Joseph D’Aguilar Samuda of Crossness, Tower Hamlets and Cubitt Town.

Joseph D'Aguilar Samuda - from a Vanity Fair cartoon

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.

Crossness Pumping Station

Crossness Pumping Station

Joseph D'Aguilar Samuda's name on the 1865 commemorative opening plaque of Crossness Pumping Station

Joseph D'Aguilar Samuda's name on the 1865 commemorative opening plaque of Crossness Pumping Station

The glorious interior of Crossness Pumping Station that Joseph D'Aguilar Samuda would have witnessed

The glorious interior of Crossness Pumping Station that Joseph D'Aguilar Samuda would have witnessed

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