Saul Solomon

Death Notice : https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSQ8-W94J-7?i=100&cat=...

• DEPOT KAB
• SOURCE MOOC
• TYPE LEER
• VOLUME_NO 6/9/310
• SYSTEM 01
• REFERENCE 2457
• PART 1
• DESCRIPTION SOLOMON, SAUL. DEATH NOTICE.
• STARTING 18920000
• ENDING 18920000

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born on the Island of St Helena, 25 May 1817 and died in Kilcreggan, Scotland, 16 October 1892, printer, newspaper proprietor and Cape parliamentary leader, Saul was the second son of Joseph Solomon, a member of a Jewish family living in Kent, England. Joseph’s elder brother had established himself on the flourishing island of St Helena, where he became the leading merchant, high sheriff, and consul for France and Holland. There his brothers, Joseph and Benjamin, and subsequently his sister’s son, Nathaniel Isaacs, joined him. Joseph was married on the island to Hannah Moss, to whom he had been engaged in England. His two elder sons, Henry and Saul, were sent, at the ages of five and four respectively, to their grandmother in England, where they were initiated into the covenant of Abraham by the chief rabbi, Dr Solomon Herschell, and taught by an orthodox schoolmaster in Ramsgate.

When they returned to their parents on St Helena it was found that both boys had been suffering from ill-health and, as a consequence, it is supposed, of defective treatment, their lower limbs had ceased to grow. Both were dwarfed, and Saul remained so short that throughout his parliamentary career he was obliged to stand on a stool when he addressed the house. His torso was normal, however, and his head massive and high-domed.

On St Helena the two boys attended the English East India company’s school, but family tradition has it that in 1829 Saul was sent to Cape Town and enrolled in the newly established South African college. His name does not appear, however, in the official examination lists until 1831. In that year the family settled in Cape Town, and circumstances obliged Saul’s parents to end his formal education.

He was apprenticed to George Greig, printer and bookseller, his brother Henry becoming Greig’s bookkeeper. On 7 September 1834 Greig sponsored Henry’s baptism at St George’s (Anglican) church, but there is no record of Saul’s ever having been baptized. Saul and Henry, as well as their brothers and sisters, were influenced by the Rev. Dr John Philip and afterwards became members of the Congregational Church. There is evidence that Saul’s sympathy with the religion of his fathers was not altogether alienated; for in 1849 he subscribed to the fund for establishing the first synagogue at the Cape and in 1856 he helped to bring from England the Rev. Joel Rabinowitz, a Jewish minister with whom he maintained an intimate friendship for over thirty years. These facts are not without significance in view of his persistent efforts, over a period of twenty years, to have the Cape parliament pass the so-called Voluntary bill.

Saul rose rapidly in Greig’s printing business, in time becoming manager and subsequently acquiring a partnership in the firm. In 1847 he and Henry took over the business, which became Saul Solomon & Co. They printed the Cape of Good Hope Government Gazette, and from its foundation in 1857 by Darnell and Murray, the Cape Argus, as well as their own commercial paper, the Cape Mercantile Advertiser. In 1863 Saul became the proprietor of the Cape Argus and directed its policy forthwith. By that time he had become a public figure and a power in the Cape parliament.

When, in 1854, the Cape Colony was granted representative government, Saul was elected a member of the first legislative assembly, being one of the members for Cape Town. This he continued to be for the next twenty-eight years, consistently adhering to those principles which he had laid down as his political creed in his reply to the original requisition inviting him to stand in the first election. He announced himself ‘a liberal in politics and a Voluntary in religion’, and wrote: ‘I shall consider it a sacred duty to give my decided opposition to all legislation tending to introduce distinctions either of class, colour or creed’.

From the first he became a prominent figure in the assembly. He was the leader of the ‘Westerners’, successfully resisting a demand for the ’separation’ of the eastern from the western Cape. When, in 1864, parliament met (for the only time) at Grahamstown, he defended the representative constitution, moving a series of resolutions (which were unanimously carried), protesting against the arbitrary action of the imperial government and censuring the governor, Sir Philip Wodehouse. Saul. played a prominent part, equally with William Porter and John Charles Molteno, in securing responsible government for the colony, and when, in 1872, it was achieved, these three were in turn invited to form the first ministry. Porter’s ill-health precluded him from taking office and Saul declined to form a ministry in the absence of Porter.

According to his son and biographer, his motive for refusal was his difficulty, physically handicapped as he was, in freely travelling about the country in the primitive conditions of those days. He held that a prime minister, in particular, should be known to the people and acquainted with every part of the country. But he declined also the office of speaker. In fact, he preferred the freedom of an independent member, able to advance or attack any policy according to his principles. His influence in parliament was none the less for his refusal to take office.

Throughout the years of Molteno’s ministry Saul lent his powerful support to the government on many occasions. ‘I believe’, wrote the visiting English novelist Anthony Trollope in 1878, ‘that it would have been nearly impossible to pass any measure of importance through the Cape Legislature to which he offered a strenuous opposition’. His Voluntary bill, to abolish state aid to churches and thus extend equality of treatment to all religious denominations, was introduced in the first parliament in 1854. It was rejected, and came up year after year, until it was eventually passed in 1875.

From his youth Saul had been stigmatized by his opponents as a ‘negrophile’, but he bore the pejorative description like a badge of honour and determinedly opposed any legislation that might result in what he held to be unjust treatment of the natives of the country. A measure carried through in the face of strong opposition was his bill for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases act in 1872, a valuable social reform. He was also an early and ardent advocate of a South African federation, seeing in the future a United States of South Africa. Ever an assiduous reader of blue-books and ready with precise information, with facts and figures and relevant evidence to back up his arguments, Saul was a clear, fluent and persuasive speaker.

Outside parliament he was active in the initiation and support of numerous enterprises for the economic welfare of the rapidly developing colony and the mother city that he represented. As an original member of the Table Bay harbour board, and through the powerful advocacy of his newspaper, the Cape Argus, he accelerated the early construction of the docks and the breakwater in Table bay. He was a founder and the chairman of the Mutual Life Assurance company, of the Inland Transport company (originated by himself about 1870 for conveying goods and passengers to the diamond-fields), a director of the Cape of Good Hope Gas company and of the Cape of Good Hope Savings Bank society. In addition to his commercial undertakings he was a member of the committee of the S.A.P.L.; a distinguished alumnus of the South African college, he donated prizes to it annually, and for nine years served on the college council.

In 1874 he married Georgina Margaret Thomson, the first principal of the Good Hope seminary, who survived him until 1933. Of the children, notable are Saul Solomon (1875-1960), judge of the supreme court, Daisy Dorothea Solomon, a leader in women’s social and political organizations in England, and W. E. Gladstone Solomon (1880-1965), painter, writer on Indian art and principal of the Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay.

In 1883 failing health obliged Saul to retire from public life and go to England; he returned to the Cape in 1885 ‘greatly improved in health and spirits’, only to find that his business, which had been left in the hands of two relatives, had been ill-managed and was on the verge of bankruptcy. His intensive attempts to rehabilitate his firm led to a further breakdown in health. Suffering from stone in the bladder, a painful malady from which he never recovered, he embarked for England with his family in 1888. Four years later he died in the Clydeside village of Kilcreggan, where his family had taken a villa.

In the houses of parliament, Cape Town, there is a portrait in oils by W. H. Schröder and also a sculptured bust presented by his widow and unveiled in 1894. The Africana museum, Johannesburg, has a pencil sketch by W. A. Watton (1877) and there is a portrait in the album collection of the S.A.P.L.

Source: Dictionary of South African Biography

Images: National Archives of South Africa

Saul Solomon Biography- https://1820gw.wikispaces.com/2.3++Saul+Solomon+Family and relative's wiki about Saul.

Sussex, Eastbourne Monumental Inscriptions Transcription for SAUL SOLOMON First name(s) Saul Last name Solomon Birth year 1817 Death year 1892 Age at death 75 yrs. Place Eastbourne, Ocklynge Cemetery Inscription RS. And of ROBINA MABON THOMSON devoted eldest daughter of George and Margaret Stuart Scott Thomson, of Haymount near Kelso who gently passed away at Tunbridge Wells December 5th 1922. In her ninety second year. "I know that my redeemer liveth" Job XIX. 25. FRONT. His motto "Righteousness exalteth a nation" SAUL SOLOMON Esquire of Clarensville, Seapoint Cape Colony Statesman & Philanthropist Born at St Helena May 25th 1817 Welcomed the call higher at Windsor, Kilcreggan Scotland October 16th 1892 The memory of his double life dedicated from boyhood to the spirit of Christ and humanity remains a benediction for South Africa His favourite text Like as a father pitieth is children so the Lord pitieth them that bear him Psalm CII. 13 Erected by his mourning widow. [see other entry for remainder of inscription] County Sussex Country England Number in grave 6 Register reference H294 Record set Sussex, Eastbourne Monumental Inscriptions Category Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers) Subcategory Deaths & burials Collections from United Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Solomon