Benjamin D'Israeli

Benjamin D'Israeli (22 September 1730– 28 November 1816) was an Italian-born English merchant and financier, the grandfather of the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.

D'Israeli was born in Cento, near Ferrara, then in the Papal States, now part of Italy, on 22 September 1730; he died at Stoke Newington, Middlesex, England on 28 November 1816. He moved to England in 1748 and settled there as a merchant, although he did not take out papers of denization until 1801.

Although a conforming Jew, and contributing liberally towards the support of a synagogue, D'Israeli appears to have never cordially or intimately mixed with the community; only on one occasion did he serve in a minor office—that of inspector of charity schools in the year 1782.

D'Israeli married twice. Firstly, on 2 April 1756, he married Rebecca Mendez Furtado, a woman of Portuguese origin. They had a daughter called Rachel. Within a few months of Rebecca's death on 1 February 1765 he married Sarah Siprut de Gabay Villareal, on 28 May 1765. Their only child, Isaac D'Israeli, was born the next year, on 11 May 1766.

Life D'Israeli was born in Cento (in present-day Italy), near Ferrara, then part of the Papal States, on 22 September 1730, the son of Isaac Israeli. His family were of Sephardic Jewish (Italian-Jewish) descent. (Both Disraeli's grandfathers were born in Italy; Isaac's father, Benjamin, moved in 1748 from Venice to England.) His second wife, Disraeli's grandmother, was Sarah Shiprut de Gabay Villareal. The maternal grandfather, Naphtali Basevi from Verona, settled in London in 1762. He married in 1767 Rebecca Rieti, born in England, the daughter of Sarah Cardoso and granddaughter of Jacob Aboab Cardoso who was already born in London (from this line, Disraeli had already four generations born in the UK).

Of Isaac Israeli is noteworthy that he bore a name honored in Jewry and that he married into a family of great antiquity and of considerable renown in Ferrara. He or his ancestors probably came from the Levant, where the Arabic name-form "Israeli" would find an environment more favorable to its survival than in Western Europe, where the Israelis of Toledo had long before assimilated themselves to the native Israels. It is not unlikely (according to Wolf), in view of the rarity of his patronymic, that he was of the family of the famous philosopher and court physician Ishac ibn Sulaiman El Israeli of Kairouan, who flourished in the tenth century, but this can only be conjectured. His wife, Rica or Eurichetta Rossi, was, however, unquestionably of the ancient family of Min-Haadumin, which traced its origin to one of the Jews led into captivity after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian, and, at a later date, translated its Hebrew name into its literal Italian equivalent, "Dei Rossi". The Min-Haadumin were numerous in Ferrara, where Isaac Israeli spent his life, and it was in the capital of the former duchy that the most illustrious of the clan, Azaria dei Rossi, practiced as a physician and wrote his remarkable encyclopedia of bible criticism, Meor Enayim, in the latter half of the sixteenth century. There also he established his private abode, until in 1783 he leased a large house in Baker Street, Enfield. The Stock Market, however, never ceased to attract him, and in 1776 he rented an office in Hamlin's Alley, Cornhill, and recommenced business there as an unlicensed broker. Three years later he took to himself two partners, and the firm became known as Messrs. D'Israeli, Stoke & Parkins. At the same time he continued his business at Great St. Helens, which was afterwards transferred to Little Winchester Street, and, in 1792, to Old Broad Street. His success is attested by the fact that the more respectable of the brokers, who had already organized the beginnings of the present Stock Exchange at New Jonathan's Coffee House, admitted him to their body, and afterwards elected him a member of their Committee for General Purposes. When, in 1801, it was resolved to build new premises at Capel Court (where the Stock Exchange remained until 1972), Mr. D'Israeli was appointed a member of the committee entrusted with the plan of conversion. He remained a member of the Stock Exchange until 1803, when he retired from business; but to the day of his death he retained an address at Tom's Coffee House, and was often seen in Cornhill, dabbling in stocks and shares.

One of the most notable enterprises with which he was associated was an attempt to substitute English straw-plaiting for the finer Italian straws then used for the best hats and bonnets. He patented a process by which "a wood which is the growth of this kingdom" was to be so treated as to yield a plait in every way equal to the Leghorn straws. The enterprise does not seem to have proved successful.

D'Israeli died in November 1816 at his house at 7 Church Row (which became Church Street), Stoke Newington, and was attended on his deathbed by a noted physician, Dr. John Aikin, who happened to be his neighbor. He left a fortune valued at £35,000 (equivalent to £ million in ).