Joseph Montefiore

Almost certainly Joseph Barrow Montefiore, merchant in London and Australia, born in Barbados, son of Eliezer Montefiore and brother and partner of Jacob Montefiore (q.v.).

1. A pioneer of Australian colonisation. He wrote to Sir George Murray in 1828 requesting 5000 acres of land: ‘...I have resided many years in the West Indies and am familiar with its products, my views will be extended to their cultivation, should the soil promise a favourable result.’

2. Died 04/09/1893 at Brighton, of 36 Kensington Gardens Square, effects £1636 6s.

T71/896 Barbados claim no. 1274.

Eliezer Montefiore partcipated in the export of enslaved from Barbados to Berbice and Demerara Eli Faber, Jews, slaves and the slave trade: setting the record straight (New York, New York University Press, 1998) p. 130.

1. Australian Dictionary of Biography online http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020215b.htm [accessed 20/11/2012]; L. M. Goldman, The Jews in Victoria in the Nineteenth Century (Melbourne, 1954) p.29.

2. National Probate Calendar 1893.

We are grateful to Nikita Vanderbyl of La Trobe for sharing the quotation and reference in L.M. Goldman with us.