Bernhard Baron

Bernhard Baron
Born Brest-Litovsk (modern Belarus)
Occupation tobacco manufacturer and philanthropist
Family Louis Baron

Bernhard Baron (1850–1929) was a tobacco manufacturer and philanthropist.[1] He was born at Brest-Litovsk (modern Belarus), in poor circumstances, to Jewish parents, and brought up among the Don Cossacks at Rostov. His father took him to the United States when young; and there, after working at a tobacco factory, he began making the newly popularised cigarettes by hand. He invented a cigarette-making machine which he brought back to England and sold for £160,000. With this money he bought the tobacco business of Mme. Carrera in 1903.

In the later years of his life, he engaged in charity on a grand scale, contributing over three-quarters of a million pounds to hospitals, as well as endowing a trust for the benefit of hospital and asylum patients. Despite these activities, his fortune, on his death at Brighton, amounted to £5 millions. His son Louis Baron was created a Baronet in 1930.

Amongst the projects supported by the Trust was a cradle-to-grave school in Henriques Street, London E1. With a capacity of over a thousand pupils it provided everything from kindergarten to adult-literacy. The school, at 71 Henriques Street, still stands but has been converted to flats.

See also

References

  1. A. E. Watkin, ‘Baron, Bernhard (1850–1929)’, rev. Christine Clark, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 16 April 2013


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