Cecil Roth

In this week’s blog post, we focus on our papers of Cecil Roth (MS 156), who was a Jewish historian and author.

Front cover of Opportunities that Pass: An Historical Miscellany by editors Israel Finestein and Joseph Roth, showing Cecil Roth

Born on 5 March 1899 in Dalston, London, Cecil Roth was the youngest of the four sons of a manufacturer of builders’ supplies, Joseph Roth, and his wife, Etty. Roth was educated at the City of London school, completed active service in France in 1918, and read history at Merton College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree in modern history in 1922. He went on to complete a DPhil in 1924, and his thesis, The Last Florentine Republic, was published in 1925.

Roth married Irene Rosalind in 1928 who was the daughter of property developer, David Davis.

Since his childhood, Roth had a deep interest in Jewish studies, which grew from having a traditional religious education and learning Hebrew. Roth funded himself by freelance writing until he was granted a readership specially created in post-biblical Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford in 1939. Here, he was also a mentor and host to Jewish students.

Roth also later became Visiting Lecturer in History at Jews’ College, London, and President of the Jewish Historical Society of England.

Letter from Rev. M. Adler to Cecil Roth praising his actions at Jewish Historical Society of England meeting, 12 June 1934 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/3]

In 1964 Roth retired from Oxford and relocated to Israel, dividing his last years between Jerusalem and New York, where he was visiting professor at Queens’ College in City University and Stern College.

Letter from Maurice Edelman, President of the Anglo-Jewish Association, wishing Roth and his wife bon voyage on their departure to Israel, 23 July 1964 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/10]

Roth wrote many important publications on Jewish history, including History of the Jews in England (1941), History of the Jews in Italy (1946), The Short History of the Jewish People (1936) and The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation (1938).

Letter from Lieut. Thomas G. Baroth to Roth expressing his thoughts on Roth’s book A Short History of the Jewish People, 6 January 1956 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/43]

Roth had a deep passion for history, and produced works of exact scholarship, in particular bibliographical works and studies of painting. He applied his skills as a historian to the Dead Sea scrolls, and always had a curiosity in art, particularly in Jewish integration.

Roth was also a keen collector, particularly of illuminated marriage contracts, silver ritual objects, rare books, and manuscripts:

“Dear Doctor, I am again in England and would like very much to visit you in Oxford, which I never did. I remember how thrilled I was with your beautiful collection of Jewish religious objects you were good enough to show to me a few years ago when I was in England.”

Sholem Asch to Cecil Roth, 22 June 1951 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/14]

One of Roth’s biggest achievements was the editorship of the Encyclopaedia Judaica from 1965. In the year of his death in 1970, the sixteen volumes appeared. He played a major part in the organisation of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, planning allocation of word limits, editing contributions, and writing much of the content himself. As a writer and lecturer, Roth was in great demand for lecture tours in Europe, America and Africa.

Letter from W.F. Albright of John Hopkins University, Maryland, to Cecil Roth, sending his congratulations on Roth’s editorship of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 23 September 1965 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/4]

Roth’s writings enabled the Jewish factor in European economic and political history to be acknowledged by the academic world.

In 1969, Roth was made commander of the order of merit for services to Italian culture by the Italian government. Roth died on 21 June 1970, survived bv his wife.

About the collection

The main part of the Cecil Roth archive (which consists of 7 boxes) was catalogued by the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts in the 1970s and presented to Mrs Roth in 1978.

It describes this collection as comprising of correspondence, genealogical and biographical notes, lecture notes, press cuttings, texts of lectures and articles, draft plan for a Modern Jewish History, book review, offprints and miscellanea.

There was a subsequent donation (A1080) of 4 boxes added in the 1990s, which contains a similar range of material to that in the main sequence.

The correspondence was divided into three alphabetical sequences:

•  AJ151/1/A contains 549 letters to and from Roth, 1920s-60s
•  AJ151/1/B 25 letters of third parties, mainly 1920s-70
•  AJ151/ADD/1 199 letters, 1962-9, again mainly addressed to Roth, filling in gaps for sequence A, replicating the pattern and subject matter.

The sequences are composed of many single letters interspersed with small groups of correspondence with individuals. These include Charles Singer, Philip Guedella, Norman Bentwich, Arthur Franklin, and Herbert Louis Samuel, first Lord Samuel. There is correspondence with organisations, usually single letters, such as the Anglo-Jewish Association, various archives (Archivo General de la Nacion (Spain), American Jewish Archives, Corporation of London Archives), Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Hutchinson Publishing Group, and the Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece. The material is predominately in English, although there is material in Hebrew, Spanish, French and German. The focus is predominately Roth’s research, publications, talks and reflects his research interests in Jewish history and genealogy. There are some personal communications within these series, but these are very much in the minority.

Examples of the documents contained in the collection are displayed below.

Criticism on Roth’s published work

MS 156 AJ151/1/A/1/26-9 Correspondence of W.G.W.Barnard “Fishers of Men” relates to Roth’s book The Nephew of the Almighty

16 January 1934: “To my great regret I discovered that your appeal to strangers to trust in your veracity was far from being justified.”

Letter from W.G.W. Barnard to Cecil Roth expressing his criticism of Roth’s book The Nephew of the Almighty, 16 January 1934 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/26]

Discussions about research or publications

Richard Barnett, British Museum to Cecil Roth regarding potential items for research, of which the information could be disseminated to the Jewish Historical Society.

Richard Barnett, British Museum, to Cecil Roth regarding potential items for research, 25 November 1954 [MS156/AJ151/1/A/1/31]

Personal material

1/A/1/5 S. Alexander, Manchester, to Roth, 30 December 1924:

“… I heard from my brother that you had lost your father. I know what this means to you and what a breaking up of thoughts and feelings. From what little I had seen of him, I rated him highly and I am heartily sorry for you and your brother and mother. It will take a little time before you can adjust yourself to a changing world and I can only hope that the process will not be too painful, and I do not attempt to offer you consolation….”

Letter from S. Alexander to Roth, regarding the death of Roth’s father, 30 December 1924 [MS/AJ151/1/A/1/5]

Research material

The collection includes notes and working papers, including notes on Jews of and at Oxford, notes on statesmen of 16th century Turkey and the social history of the Jews in Europe, copies or transcripts of documents, photographs and other papers; genealogies of the Mendes Dacosta, Jurnet and Salaman families, the Liebman, Woolf and Solomon of Penzance and the Jacobs families.

Typed draft of article on the existence of manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible in the early centuries of the Christian era, with annotations by Roth [MS156/AJ151/6/3]

Lectures by Roth on Jewish history from the early medieval period to the 19th century also feature, as well as reviews and articles, newspaper cuttings and offprints.

Other material includes the text of a radio play by Cecil Roth “The King and the Cabbalist”, with manuscript annotations. The play, which was produced by Christopher Sykes, was transmitted as part of the BBC Third Programme on Monday 23 November 1953. The narrator was played by Francis de Wolff, the reader by Derek Hart, the Diarist (Hirsch) by Norman Shelley and Horace Walpole by David King-Wood. In addition, there is also a copy of A Bird’s-Eye View of Jewish History (Cincinnati, 1935) with manuscript annotations. This was done to amend it as the basis of a correspondence course in Jewish history, c.1947.

Collection at the University of Leeds

In 1961 arrangements were made between the University of Leeds and Dr Cecil Roth for the acquisition of his printed books and manuscripts. This purchase was facilitated by a generous anonymous benefactor. The material included modern business papers and letters, of which a large amount related to a small group concerned with the condition of the Jewish community in Salonika, their desecrated cemetery, and Greek Jewry at the end of the Second World War.

Look out for next week’s blog post, which will be taking a look at Bevois Mount House.

Letters from “your most affectionate father”: celebrating Father’s Day through the Broadlands Archives

Father’s Day, celebrated in the United Kingdom on the third Sunday of June, is a day of honoring fatherhood and paternal bonds, as well as the influence of fathers in society. Unlike Mothering Sunday, which most historians believe evolved from a medieval practice of visiting one’s mother church during Lent, Father’s Day does not have a long tradition.

This year, to celebrate Father’s Day, we delve into the extensive resource that is the Broadlands Archives; this collection contains dozens of letters between Henry Temple, the second Viscount Palmerston, and his four children. Henry’s first child (also called Henry) was born in 1784. As Father’s Day is a twentieth century phenomenon, the Temple family would not have celebrated it. Despite the letters being over 200 years old, many themes are remarkably similar to modern day life and provide a wonderful vignette of Georgian family life.

Broadlands near Romsey, the country residence of the Temple family, Viscounts Palmerston. [London, Ackermann, 18- ] Aquatint 11.4 x 18.1 cm. Plate 14, vol. 6 of Repository of Arts, 1809-1818. [Cope Collection cq72 BRO; print number pr 41]

Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston was born in 1739. He married Mary Mee in 1783 and they had 4 (surviving) children: Henry, Frances, William and Elizabeth. In a letter to her husband, sent from Broadlands on 26 December 1788, Mary says:

Harry sends his love, and will kiss the letter, which he thinks the only way of sending a kiss, and Fanny ditto

MS62/BR/11/13/15

The future third Viscount Palmerston would have been about 4 at the time and his younger sister, Frances, just 2. If you note the date, it seems that Father’s Day was not the only celebration that had less significant status in the late eighteenth century!

The Temples spent a fair amount of time apart: probably not uncommon for a noble family in this period. Many of their frequent letters have been preserved, leaving a wonderfully rich resource for historians. Lady Palmerston went to Bath in January 1795 to stay with her ill mother. Lord Palmerston had all the children to live with him at their London residence in Hanover Square and sent regular domestic news to his wife:

Lilly’s cough has been nothing and only seemed to come at times and then was gone and then it came again but Mr Walker thought her bowels wanted clearing which might have something to do with her coughing. She has taken twice calomel which has had a very happy effect and she seems very well…

I will do something about a dentist. I have been talking with two or three people and for the present am inclined to apply to Spence as I understand that he is much used to childrens teeth about the time of changing them and that as some drawing may be requisite he is superior to any body in the respect.

MS62/BR/20/11/2

His remarks are strangely reminiscent of twenty-first century family life, if the medical treatments have advanced somewhat in two centuries! A subsequent letter sends good news respecting the dreaded dental appointment:

I am very happy to tell you that poor Fanny muster’d up a great deal of courage today and has had one tooth out which is what Spence thought most immediately necessary and she says it did not give her near so much pain as she expected and that she shall not much mind having the others out when it is necessary.

MS62/BR/20/11/1

Sketch of Henry John Temple, future third Viscount Palmerston as a young man

Later that same year in May, Lord Palmerston updates his wife that: “the boys are well but I never – but for a moment – see them as their hours are so different that I have no means of doing so, not dining at home, without deranging their studies or their amusements either of which I shd be sorry to do.” [BR20/12/40] Their eldest son would have been about eleven years old at this point and just about to start at boarding school, as we learn in the next letter.

I drove down to Harrow yesterday and had some conversation with Mr and Mrs Bromley. She seems very intelligent and notable and I dare say will take very good care of Harry… They do not wish for more clothes than are likely to be useful… I forgot to ask them about night shirts but I am persuaded they are quite out of the question and wd only make him the joke of the other boys.

Letter from Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston, London, to Mary Mee, Clifton, Bristol MS62/BR20/12/41

Harry was later persuaded that a night shirt might be a good idea. We are sure many parents of teenage children have had a similar battle respecting winter coats! The following year, December 1796, Lord Palmerston writes from their London home in Hanover Square to his daughter Lilly:

My dear Lilly

I am much obliged to you for your nice and well written Italian letter. I am very glad to hear that you and your brother and sister are well, and that you have nursed your mama so well…Miss Carter…is much delighted with your theatre, and says you are an excellent little actress… I hope you will not get cold this very severe weather. It freezes here uncommonly hard for the time of year… All the London ice houses are filling up and the ice is two or three inches thick…

Give my best love to all your party and believe me ever

My dear little Lilly

Your affectionate Father

Palmerston

MS62/BR6/3/9

Lord and Lady Palmerston decided to place their eldest son, now fifteen years old, in an intermediary situation between school and an English university. When Lord Palmerston writes to the proposed new tutor Dugald Stewart he acknowledged that his “father’s account” of his son’s character may not be impartial:

My son who was fifteen years of age last October has risen nearly to the top of Harrow School and has given me uniform satisfaction with regard to his disposition his capacity and his acquirements. He is now coming to that critical and important period when a young man’s mind is most open to receive such impressions as may operate powerfully on his character and his happiness during the remainder of his life … I would be cautious of saying thus much in his commendation if it was likely you would have much opportunity on enquiring what he is from others; but as that may probably not be the case, you must, in default of more impartial judges, accept a father’s account with such allowance as you may think proper to make.

[Jun 1800 MS62/BR12/1/4/1]

The tender care and fatherly pride is plainly evident through all of Lord Palmerston’s correspondence with his children. He died two years later aged only 63 leaving his son Henry to inherit his title and become the third Viscount Palmerston.

Many of you will be well aware that commemorative days are not always easy, particularly for children who have lost their father; fathers who have lost children and those who would have loved to have been a father, but never had the opportunity. We would like to take this opportunity to wish all the fathers, and others who take a paternal role in the lives of others, a very happy Fathers Day.

National Immigrant Heritage Month

June is ‘National Immigrant Heritage Month’ in the United States and in president Biden’s proclamation he beseeches Americans to ‘reaffirm and draw strength from that enduring identity and celebrate the history and achievements of immigrant communities across our Nation.’: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/01/a-proclamation-on-national-immigrant-heritage-month-2021/

Henry John Temple (third Viscount Palmerston), as well as serving as British Prime Minster from 1855-58 and again from 1859-65, was an absentee Anglo-Irish landlord based at Broadlands in Romsey, Hampshire, but his estate also included land in County Sligo, Ireland. The University of Southampton’s Special Collections hold the Broadlands archive, which includes the estate papers of Lord Palmerston. Amongst these papers we have some letters, written in 1847-8, by Irish emigrants in America to their loved ones back in the old country of County Sligo, Ireland [MS 62 BR146/10/13].

They had fled from the Great Famine, known in the local language in western Ireland as ‘An Drochshaol’, literally ‘the bad life’ or ‘the hard times’. In 1845 a mysterious blight destroyed half of the potato crop in the parish of Ahamlish, County Sligo. Hunger and then starvation emerged in early 1846 as the last of the previous years’ crop dwindled, amidst hopes for a better harvest that year. Alas, the entire crop for 1846 was destroyed and the situation only intensified.

The Great Famine and the lacklustre responses to it, is estimated to have caused 1 million deaths in Ireland with a further two million emigrating from the country in the succeeding ten years. The immediate cause of the famine was a fungus-like disease known as potato blight, which affected many parts of Europe and may have been a factor in the Revolutions of 1848. In Ireland the situation was exacerbated, to dire proportions, by the laissez-faire economic philosophy of the British Whig party, exploitation by landlords, pre-existing poverty and single-crop dependence.

The Broadlands archive was referenced by Tyler Anbinder of George Washington University in his paper ‘Lord Palmerston and the Irish Famine Emigration’, published in The Historical Journal, Vol. 44 Issue 2, June 2001: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/LORD-PALMERSTON-AND-THE-IRISH-FAMINE-EMIGRATION-Anbinder/b7beca9a9fd54d582eec32f94511f9ce52c7cab5.

“[Palmerston] was one of the first Irish landlords to finance the emigration of starving tenants during the great Irish famine. Although the first boatloads of emigrants were well outfitted, by the end of 1847 Palmerston stood accused of cruelly mistreating his departing tenants. One Canadian official compared conditions on the vessels he chartered to those of the slave trade […]”

Approximately 2,000 residents from Palmerston’s Sligo estate fled to America in 1847 and Anbinder goes on to note that, whilst Palmerston paid for some of his tenants to emigrate to America, it was rare for landlords to do so: “Only about 6 to 8 per cent of emigrants in this period left Ireland […] as the result of assistance from governments, religious and charitable organizations, or landlords.”

The controversy over Palmerston’s treatment of his emigrating Sligo tenants was addressed in the reminiscences, written in the late nineteenth century, of William Kerringham of Dublin, who had been involved in the emigration of Palmerston’s tenants [MS 62 BR138/19]. He claimed the following:

“In 1847 when Messrs Stewart Kincaid contracted with me for the voluntary emigration from his estates in the County Sligo, Lord Palmerston wrote “[…] let every man and woman have a hot tumbler of the best Jamaica rum – punch after dinner on Sundays…”

Rum was brought on board at 4s/9 a gallon as well as sugar to make the “famous Glasgow punch”. It appears that the clergy then wrote to Palmerston or his agents complaining that the alcohol on board was “doing away the good effected by Father Matthew among the people. You will therefore sell the rum shipped in the other ships upon arrival […]”. Subsequently it was agreed that “every man, woman and child have a cup of coffee with a biscuit every day after dinner in lieu.” Half a ton of coffee was shipped in each vessel. A Mr Mascwell from the Dublin office superintended the emigration giving at the request of Lord Palmerston £10 to “each captain to induce them to be kind to the people on board”. Clothing was provided “for such poor passengers as required them’. During the famine year the Marquis of Westmeath allegedly only gave half a Crown to the poor leaving his estates while ‘Lord Palmerston’s emigration cost 7/./. a head” (£7 a head).

William Kerringham’s reminiscences of the emigration of Lord Palmerston’s tenants [MS 62 BR138/19].

In one letter dated 25^th November 1847 written by a Sligo emigrant to America, Sally Johnston describes her relatively benign transatlantic passage of 1847:

“We were a month and 4 days coming to St Johns. Bridget was only one day sick on the passage and I, Sally was 14 days sick. The cook was very kind to us we had plenty of provision on the passage, plenty of tea, coffee, meal and flour and oatmeal and biscuits and lots of sugar. We were 6 days in St Johns after landing waiting for the boat to bring us to Boston.” [MS 62 BR146/10/13]

Whether or not Palmerston deserves credit for showing kindness towards his emigrating tenants, where other landlords did not, he had self-interests involved too. One of Palmerston’s complaints was that economic conditions in Ireland were so dire because the land was often broken up into small holdings that were incapable of producing enough food beyond that needed for the tenants’ own subsistence, plus a limited surplus of cash crops. Palmerston and other landlords took advantage of the situation in the 1840s to amalgamate small landholdings into bigger and more productive estates.

One family of Irish emigrants from Sligo, the Gilmartins, settled in Connecticut and life in the new country was certainly preferable to life in the old country, as revealed in a letter from Mr and Mrs Gilmartin of Connecticut, to their son, dated 6^th October 1847:

“We are all here safe and sound. Thank God for all his mercies to us these 10 weeks. We spent 5 weeks in New York before we started for this village. We are all here employed at different works we are quite comfortable and happy, there is not a day passed that we do not see each other […] The climate agrees right well with us and we have no reason whatsoever to complain or find fault with our several situations. Your father and mother are in excellent health and good spirits and more comfortable than when at home at least during the latter part of our term in the old country.” [MS 62 BR146/10/13]

The Gilmartins then urge their son to leave for America if he is able to do so and they offer to pay for his passage using money that they were earning in America. They are also keen to hear about the scarcity of food in Ireland and the situation of their old friends and neighbours:

“Your father has a dollar a day and Dennis eighteen dollars a month, and Catherine and Anne six dollars a month each and boarding. We will be able with God’s assistance to send you some money without much delay […]”

But as well as expressing concern and worry for loved ones in the old country there are glimpses of a hopeful attitude and the prospects of establishing new communities in America:

“There is an abundance of corn of every description here and more than eighty Irish of every age and sex living in this neighbourhood and all of us visit each other every Sunday regularly tho’ there was not an Irish man or woman in this part of the state of Connecticut 6 months ago. We have got no priest amongst us as yet but please God we will have one shortly we are not within 18 miles of a clergyman and cannot go to hear mass of a Sunday as there is not a mass house more than once a month in any town through the state.”

America’s immigrant communities often have a painful and darker side to their origin stories, as was the case for the many Irish who fled ‘the bad life’ of late 1840s Ireland but as the letters from the Gilmartin family make clear, in America there is a long tradition of hope for a brighter future…

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