Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Hospital, Report 5696-97 / 1936, London 1937.

I’ve written before about two earlier annual reports of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Hospital, from 1907 and 1909.  This one, for the year 1936, depicts a slightly more modern institution, to which H. Genese donated a radio loudspeaker.

Many of us have walked past the old-looking building at 253 Mile End Road, often without realizing that it is old, but not as old as expected, and seen the plaque about the adjacent Velho (Old) cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, the first Jewish cemetery in London since the expulsion.

The hospital, which became an old people’s home, was founded in 1747 by the Spanish and Portuguese community. It was transferred to this site in 1790 and rebuilt (the current building on this site) in 1912.  In 1977 it moved to Wembley, and this building was taken over by Queen Mary’s College.

The report below includes an interesting list of “inmates”, sometimes difficult to identify because of repetitive names in the same family.  However, I believe that the first name, Gershon Ascoli, was George Gershon Theophilus Ascoli, who was born in 1859, and at one time had a chemists shop called Ascotts Drug Stores in Kentish Town, London.