Samuel Moss Solomon

Samuel Moss Solomon (c. 1769 –13 May 1842) was an English pencil maker and early Jewish settler in Australia. He has thousands of descendants in the country, many of whom achieved a degree of notability.

Biography Solomon was born in Spitalfields, an area in east London, to Moss Solomon and Julia . Solomon was a high ranking Freemason. His Masonic apron is preserved at the Grand Lodge in Adelaide, Australia.

He married Elizabeth Moses (c. 1772–c. 1814) and had four sons: Moss Samuel, Emanuel, Vaiben and Phillip, and four daughters: Susan, Hannah, Sarah and Esther. with whom he had another two children, Isaac and Elizabeth "Betsy". Solomon also had a son who went to Jamaica around 1818 and was subsequently disowned. On a silver snuffbox from 1833, part of a collection at the Jewish Museum of Australia, is an inscription that reads "Presented to Samuel Moss Solomon the inventor of lead pencils by his London friends."

Solomon made pencils in the Houndsditch area. In 1823, he was falsely accused of trading products without a license, for which he had to defend himself before the Magistrate. His accuser was then charged with "committing an assault on an honest Jew." Just a few years earlier, in 1817, two of his sons, were convicted of being in possession of stolen goods They opened a wholesale retail warehouse in 1826 and a wine cellar in 1833 on George Street. Samuel Isaac Solomon (1843–1907), fire captain Elizabeth Solomon (1851–1916) married Abraham Tobias Boas (1842–1923) Isabel Eve Boas (1874–1961) Harold Krantz (1906–1999) Lionel Boas (1875–1949) Isaac Herbert Boas (1878–1955) Harold Boas (1883–1980)

Other relatives There were other Jewish Solomon families involved in the settling of Australia, many of whom arrived as penal transports. a daughter of Abraham and Julia Solomon who had arrived in Australia as steerage. Miriam married Solomon's grandson in 1868.