Solomons Family

Solomons Family

Maurice Solomons came to England from Romania in 1900. He settled in the East End, and later moved out to live in Victoria Park Road, Hackney. This move north was part of a widespread pattern for the East European Jewish immigrants who arrived in London in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of them initially settled near the docks; gradually they moved into Hackney and eventually into northern suburbs such as Edgware and Golders Green.

Maurice worked in a tailor's workshop run by the Bloomfields family, who had also migrated from Romania. Tailoring was the most common trade among East European Jews in London.

Shortly after his arrival in England, Maurice married Sarah, whom he had been engaged to in Romania. They had four sons, Mark, Alf, Bernie and Sid; and two daughters, Polly and Anne (usually known as Trudie). Sarah died in 1919. Maurice eventually married again, and had another two sons, Lou and Henry, and a daughter, Miriam, with his second wife Jennie.

Polly Solomons (1905-97) was Maurice's eldest daughter. She was born in Brick Lane. When her mother died, she took over much of the responsibility of raising her siblings. After her father remarried, she went out to work in the tailoring and dressmaking industry. She earned 12 shillings a week, 10 shillings of which she used to pay for her keep. Out of the remaining two shillings, she gave each of her siblings a penny pocket money.

All six of the Solomons boys served in the armed forces during the Second World War; fortunately they all survived. Mark (who died in 1980), the eldest, was in the RAF, and his younger brothers were in the army. Bernie (1913-2002), who later changed his name to Salmon, was initially posted to Skegness. In 1942 he married Lina Pellicci, and he was then almost immediately posted to South Africa for three years. Miriam, the youngest of the Solomons daughters, married G.I. Al Friedman in 1945 and went to live in America.

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