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
Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road M ...
, London, into a prominent
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family. Her father,
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 ...
, was a merchant banker and her uncles
Herbert
Herbert may refer to:
People Individuals
* Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert
Name
* Herbert (given name)
* Herbert (surname)
Places Antarctica
* Herbert Mountains, Coats Land
* Herbert Sound, Graham Land
Australia
* Herbert ...
and
Stuart Samuel
Sir Stuart Montagu Samuel, 1st Baronet (24 October 1856 – 13 May 1926) was a British banker and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who was Member of Parliament for Whitechapel (UK Parliament constituency), Whitechapel.
Samuel was the elde ...
were leading politicians. Her siblings included
Hugh Franklin, a suffragist, and
Ellis Arthur Franklin
Ellis Arthur Franklin (28 March 1894 – 16 January 1964) was an English merchant banker.
Early life
Franklin was born in Kensington, London into an affluent Anglo-Jewish family. He was the son of Arthur Ellis Franklin, a merchant banker a ...
, another banker and eventual vice-principal of the
Working Men's College.
She attended
St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School is an independent day school for girls, aged 11 to 18, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in West London, England.
History
St Paul's Girls' School was founded by the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1904, using part o ...
and
Bedford College.
Her niece,
Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, co ...
, established in 1952 that
DNA consisted of a
double helix
A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another.
Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to:
Film and television
* Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character
* ...
.
Philanthropy
Bentwich served a forewoman at the
Woolwich Arsenal in 1916. She fought for the rights of women workers and tried to form a trade union. Forced to resign, she became an organiser for the
Women's Land Army
The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the ...
.
Bentwich and her husband moved to
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
in 1919, where he was appointed attorney-general under the
British Mandate. She organised nursery schools, formed arts and crafts centres, and became honorary secretary of the Palestine Council of Jewish Women.
She had mixed feelings about later developments in the region:
Her nephew, lawyer
Benedict Birnberg, wrote a letter to ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' that she "never acquired a handle and always cold-shouldered Zionism."
In the 1930s she was active in the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, and was later involved in helping the
Falashas
The Beta Israel ( he, בֵּיתֶא יִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Bēteʾ Yīsrāʾēl''; gez, ቤተ እስራኤል, , modern ''Bēte 'Isrā'ēl'', Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "House of Israel" or "Community of Israel"), als ...
in Ethiopia.
Political career
Soon after her arrival, Helen joined the Labour Party and ran for Parliament at a by-election in
Dulwich (1932) and in
Harrow in the
1935 general election, but lost both times. However, in the spring of 1934 she was invited by
Eveline Lowe
Eveline Mary Lowe (29 November 1869 – 30 May 1956) was a British politician.
Born in Rotherhithe as Eveline Farren, she attended Milton Mount College and then Homerton College, where she qualified as a teacher. She then began teaching at the c ...
to become a co-opted member of the London County Council education committee, and in 1937 she was elected a member of the Council for
North Kensington
North Kensington is an area of west London. It is north of Notting Hill and south of Kensal Green and in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The names North Kensington and Ladbroke Grove describe the same area.
North Kensington is w ...
.
In 1946, she was elected for
Bethnal Green North East and from 1955 to 1965 she was a member for
Stoke Newington and Hackney North. She became chairman of the education committee in 1947, alderman in 1949, vice-chair in 1950, and Chairman of the Council from 1956 to 1957. In 1965 she was appointed CBE.
Personal life
She married barrister
Norman Bentwich
Norman de Mattos Bentwich (28 February 1883 – 8 April 1971) was a British barrister and legal academic. He was the British-appointed attorney-general of Mandatory Palestine and a lifelong Zionist.
Biography Early life
Norman Bentwich was th ...
in 1915. She followed him in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
shortly after their wedding. In 1931, the couple returned to England. They had homes in
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
and
Sandwich, Kent
Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval buildings, including sev ...
, as well as a home in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, where her husband was a
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
professor.
Death and legacy
Bentwich died at her home in
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
, London, in 1972, a year after her husband.
The archives of Helen Bentwich are held at
The Women's Library
The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...
at the Library of the London School of Economics.
Bibliography
* ''Our Councils: The Story of Local Government'' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1962)
* ''Mandate Memories, 1918 – 1948'' (with Norman Bentwich, Hogarth Press, 1965)
* ''The Vale of Health on Hampstead Heath, 1777–1967'' (High Hill Press, Hampstead, 1968)
* ''History of Sandwich in Kent'' (T. F. Pain and Sons, Deal, 1971)
* ''If I forget thee: some chapters of autobiography, 1912–20'' (Elek, London, 1973)
* ''Tidings from Zion: Helen Bentwich's letters from Jerusalem, 1919–1931'' (edited by Jenifer Glynn; I.B. Tauris, London, 2000).
References
External links
Portrait of Helen Bentwich in 1957
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentwich, Helen
1892 births
1972 deaths
20th-century English women politicians
20th-century English politicians
20th-century British philanthropists
Alumni of Bedford College, London
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English autobiographers
English Jews
English local historians
English memoirists
English women philanthropists
English people of Israeli descent
Franklin family (Anglo-Jewish)
Historians of London
Labour Party (UK) councillors
Members of London County Council
People from Hampstead
People from Jerusalem
People from Sandwich, Kent
People from Notting Hill
Women's Land Army members (World War I)
Women councillors in England
20th-century women philanthropists