England expects…: British Jews under the white ensign from HMS Victory to the loss of HMS Hood in 1941

The fact that Jews have served and still serve in the Royal Navy frequently occasions surprise, and it is true that the phenomenon is somewhat rare. The relatively small number of Anglo-Jewish Royal Navy Seamen and Royal Marines is itself worth studying within the wider history of the Royal Navy.

Early evidence of the consequences of being Jewish in the Royal Navy can be found in the partial obscurity of the supernumerary section of HMS Victory^ muster roll. One entry states that Landsman Moses Benjamin, ‘being a Jew, was to be discharged from the service on the order of Lord Nelson, agreeable to orders from the Lord commissioners of the Admiralty. Dated 20 August 1805.1 This annotation needs clarification. Moses Benjamin, a pedlar, was pressed while in the Minories, close to the London Docks, a favourite haunt of Press Gangs, and sent to HMS Victory, then refitting at Chatham on

Written by

Geoffrey Green

Published in

Volume 41

2007

Other articles within the volume

• In memoriam: Lionel Kochan, 1922-2005
• Kindertransport: Tylers Green Hostel for young Jewish refugees
• Mac Goldsmith
• Addendum III: Lieutenant Marcus Bloom: a Jewish hero of the SOE
• Addendum II: More than just a few: Jewish pilots and aircrew in the Battle of Britain
• Addendum I
• Captain Isidore Newman, SOE
• A Jewish contribution to British psychiatry: Edward Mapother, Aubrey Lewis and their Jewish and refugee colleagues at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry, 1933-66
• Hagedud Ha-Sini: The Jewish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, 1932—42
• Jewish missionary activity in Portugal between the Wars
• Izak Goller (1891—1939): Zionist poet, playwright and preacher
• Two Hebrew grammars and the Enlightenment
• England expects…: British Jews under the white ensign from HMS Victory to the loss of HMS Hood in 1941
• John Braham — from meshorrer to tenor
• An eighteenth-century Sephardi lady: her relations and her property
• The Mahamad as an Arbitration Court
• The Domus Conversorum: the personal interest of Henry III
• Preface