The recent death at the age of 72 of Moses Albert Lindo recalls the fact that he was the last of the Jewish brokers to pay, as was the custom, for the right to operate on the London Exchange.
Mr. Lindo’s family resided in England from the time of Cromwell. It was a record of which he was very proud.
For eleven generations the Lindos, without a break, lived, died and were buried in London, and for eight of these generations its members were sworn brokers. The first one of twelve “Jew brokers”, a Lindo was admitted to the Exchange in 1697, on payment of 1,500 pounds. When the late Mr. Lindo was admitted in 1884 he paid only five pounds. For years afterward the Guildhall Register of Sworn Brokers was abolished.
In the days of the Spanish Inquisition there lived in the Canary Islands Lorenzo Rodriguez Lindo He was hauled up before the officials for carrying in his shoe a picture of the Christ “to desecrate his holy image.” In 1675 there settled in London one Isaac Lindo, who is identified with the Spaniard who offended the Inquisition. He was the nephew of Antonio Fernandez de Corvojal, who signed a petition to Cromwell for the admission of the Jews to England.
A Lindo was one of the founders of the first London synagogue, opened in Creo-Church-Lane in 1657, after the resettlement of the Jews under Cromwell. The late Mr. Lindo carried on the tradition and was president of the Board of Guardians of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue for twenty years.
He was associated with the firm of Messrs. Samuel Montague and Company for fifty years.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
