Subject

Author and philanthropist.  Born Kensington.  Grand nephew to Moses.  Was a friend of Oscar Wilde when they were both at Oxford University.  Chief assistant to Samuel Barnett in his work regarding the extension of Oxford University to London.  The Jewish Encyclopedia says "Montefiore was associated with many philanthropic movements, especially with the movement for women's emancipation."

Our colleague, Andrew Behan, has conducted further research on this man. Leonard Abraham Montefiore was born on 4 May 1853, the second of the four children of Nathaniel Mayer Montefiore (1819-1883) and Emma Montefiore née Goldsmid (1819-1902). Although his birth was registered in the 2nd quarter of 1853 in the Kensington registration district, the 1861 census return gives his place of birth as Paddington, Middlesex.

In the 1861 census he is shown as a scholar, living at 36 Hyde Park Gardens, Paddington, with his parents, three siblings: Alice Julia Montefiore (1851-1935), Charlotte Rosalind Montefiore (1855-1933) and Claude Joseph Goldsmid Montefiore (1858-1938), together with a governess, a lady's maid, a nurse, a nursery-maid, a cook, two housemaids and a footman. His father was recorded as a surgeon FRCS (not practising).

The 1871 census describes him as an undergraduate, still living at 36 Hyde Park Gardens, Paddington, with his parents and three siblings together with two lady's maids, two housemaids, a cook, a kitchen-maid and a footman. His father's occupation was shown as a landowner.

He was a student at the University of London in 1870 before going to Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 5 February 1873, obtaining his BA in 1878 and was a student at the Inner Temple, London, in 1875. He died, aged 26 years, on 6 September 1879 as a result of an attack of rheumatic fever in Rhode Island, USA and was buried in Row 21, Grave 21, in the Balls Pond Road Cemetery, Kingsbury Road, London, N1.

Probate records state that the Will of Leonard Abraham Montefiore, late of 18 Portman Square in the County of Middlesex, who died in Newport, Rhode Island, USA, was proved on 20 December 1879 by his two executors: his brother Claude Joseph Montefiore of Balliol College, Oxford and James Meadows Rendell of 44 Lancaster Gate, Middlesex. His personal estate was shown as under £10,000.