Ellis Arthur Franklin (28 March 1894 – 16 January 1964) was an English

merchant banker A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodi ...

Early life

Franklin was born in Kensington, London into an affluent

Anglo-Jewish British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British citizens who identify as Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 2021. History ...

family. He was the son of

Arthur Ellis Franklin Arthur Ellis Franklin (18 April 1857 – 24 December 1938) was a British merchant banker and senior partner of Keyser & Co. Early life He was the son of the merchant banker Ellis Abraham Franklin (1822-1909), and came from a prominent Anglo-J ...

, a merchant banker and senior partner at Keyser & Co, and his wife, Caroline Jacob. The family was related to both parts of the Montagu-Samuel banking-and-politics 'Cousinhood'. Franklin's grandfather was Ellis Abraham Franklin (1822-1909), a partner at Samuel Montagu and brother-in-law of Lord Swaythling. His uncle was

Herbert Samuel Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, (6 November 1870 – 5 February 1963) was a British Liberal politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935. He was the first nominally-practising Jew to serve as a Cabinet minister and to be ...

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...

(1916), and the first High Commissioner for the

British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...

. His siblings included

Helen Bentwich Helen Caroline Bentwich ( Franklin; 6 January 1892 – 26 April 1972) was a British philanthropist and politician. Biography Helen Franklin (later Bentwich) was born in Notting Hill, London, into a prominent Jewish family. Her father, Arthur ...

(wife to Norman de Mattos Bentwich, Attorney General in the

, active in

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

organisation,

Women's Suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

, and the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

on which she was a member) and Hugh Franklin, a militant

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

and penal reform activist.

Career

Ellis Franklin was a banker at Keyser & Co, where his father was senior partner. Franklin became a teacher of a class in Electricity at The Working Men's College in 1919, having been introduced to the College by his uncle, the banker Lionel Jacob. By 1922 he had become Vice Principal of the College and was instrumental in attracting donations to the College from the

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, and new College Corporation members from the Home Office, The Bar, and the City. Harrison, J. F. C. (1954), ''A History of the Working Men's College (1854–1954)'', Routledge Kegan Paul, pp. 157, 164, 168.

Personal life

Franklin married Muriel Frances Waley (1894–1976). They resided in London. They had five children. David (1919–1986) was the eldest. Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958), was the influential biophysicist, being involved in the discovery of DNA among many areas of work. Colin Ellis Franklin (1923–2020) was a writer, bibliographer, book-collector and antiquarian bookseller. Sir Roland Franklin (born 1926) was a merchant banker. Jenifer (born 1929) was their youngest child. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Ellis A. Franklin helped Jewish refugees fleeing from the Continent, some being taken into the family home.

References

1894 births 1964 deaths Bankers from London English Jews Ellis Arthur Officers of the Order of the British Empire Place of death missing 20th-century English businesspeople {{Judaism-bio-stub