City of London, Lord Mayor and Sheriff's Committee
William Taylor Copeland,(1797- 1868). Businessman and politician who served as Lord Mayor of London and a Member of Parliament for Coleraine. He succeeded his father in partnership with Josiah Spode, subsequently taking over the other company.
Sir David Salomons, Bart.(1797- 1873)
First English Jew to become sheriff, magistrate, alderman, member of Parliament, and lord mayor of London; He was one of the founders of the London and Westminster Bank in 1832, and became an under-writer in 1834. He was thus brought into personal association with the higher financial ranks of the metropolis, and he now determined on seeking the suffrages of his fellow citizens.
Salomons' claim to distinction rests on the courageous efforts he made to obtain the removal of Jewish disabilities. Having been admitted in 1831 by the Coopers' Company a freeman and liveryman of the city of London, in 1835 he became the first Jewish sheriff of London and Middlesex; and a special act of Parliament was passed to set at rest any doubts which might exist as to the legality of the election.. Sir Robert Peel, recognizing the hardship under which the Jews suffered, then introduced a bill in Parliament securing municipal privileges to his Jewish fellow subjects. In due course Salomons became the first Jewish lord mayor of London (1855). His mayoralty was a series of triumphs, his career at the Mansion House being one of exceptional brilliancy and popularity. He received the King of Sardinia at the Guildhall, and during his mayoralty the inscription on the London monument attributing the Great Fire of 1666 to the Roman Catholics was removed.
Salomons then became a candidate for Parliament and unsuccessfully contested Old Shoreham in 1837, Maidstone in 1841, and Greenwich in 1847; but he was returned as a Liberal for the last-mentioned borough in June 1851. He declined to take the oath "on the true faith of a Christian," a proceeding which drew the attention of the whole country to the question of Jewish disabilities. Taking his seat in the House, he was ordered to withdraw after having been heard in defence of his unprecedented action and was subsequently fined £500 for illegally voting.. The Greenwich constituency which he represented, however, reelected him again and again; but it was not until the alteration of the Parliamentary oath in 1858, after many futile attempts, that he was enabled to take his seat in 1859.
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