David Behrend

David Behrend (1792-1863)

David Behrend was born in 1792 in Hanover and came to England in 1809. He seems to have arrived in London penniless. A German nephew of his recounts that during a visit to England in 1856, his uncle showed him in one of the slums of the City of London the “most miserable of all houses where he had once as a hapless youth at the beginning of the century found shelter at night with money obtained by begging.” He may have been in Liverpool by 1812, and he was soon prosperous enough to rent a seat in Liverpool’s Seel Street Synagogue. In 1816/17 he is on the books of the Liverpool Philanthropic Society as a donor, not a recipient. He may have already been working for Charles Bahr, a Dane, who had established a ship-broking agency (i.e. an agency arranging the shipment of goods). In 1835, he became a partner. The firm of Bahr Behrend exists to this day in Liverpool.

David married twice: Priscilla Aaron of Liverpool in 1823 and, two years after her death, in 1835, Maria Hess, who belonged to a leading Liverpool family. He had two sons by Priscilla, George Henry and Henry Michael, and one son by Maria, Samuel Hesse. David was Senior Treasurer of the Old Hebrew Congregation’s Seel Street Synagogue in 1845-46 and Senior Warden twice: 1851-52, 1855-57.