Rose Henriques

Rose Louise Henriques, Lady Henriques (née Loewe; 17 August 1889 – 1972) was a British artist and social and charity worker in the East End of London, where she was born and lived throughout her life. She was posthumously recognised as a British Hero of the Holocaust.

Biography Henriques was born in Stoke Newington to Orthodox Jewish parents. Her father, James Henry Loewe, was a bankers' agent, community worker and scholar from Brighton while her mother, Emma née Immerwahr, had emigrated to London from Beuthen (Bytom) in Upper Silesia. At the age of 16, Rose was sent to stay with relations in Breslau, now Wrocław, where she trained as a pianist and learned to speak German. The couple worked on a number of joint enterprises together. From 1914 until 1948, they were the joint wardens of the St George's Jewish Settlement in Stepney, later known as the Bernhard Baron St George's Jewish Settlement. The settlement housed a number of social and educational clubs.

During World War I, Rose Henriques worked as a nurse at Liverpool Street station and in World War II, she served as an air-raid warden and also organized an emergency feeding scheme for people whose homes had been destroyed in the Blitz. At the start of World War II, she applied to work for the War Artists' Advisory Committee, but it was only later in the conflict that the Committee purchased one of her watercolours, Shelter Entrance from 1941.

In 1955, Basil Henriques was knighted and his wife became known as Lady Henriques. The local council renamed the street where the St George's Jewish Settlement was located as Henriques Street in honour of the couple. In May 2019, the British Government honoured Henriques with the British Hero of the Holocaust award.