Lord Reading, the only Englishman who was ever Lord Chief Justice of England, Viceroy of India and ambassador to the United States, will celebrate his seventieth birthday tomorrow. Born Daniel Rufus Isaacs, the son of a wealthy London Jewish merchant, Lord Reading’s phenomenally successful career has as much drama in it as any Arabian Nights tale.
As a lad he ran away from home and ended up in India as a cabin boy. His parents brought him back and had him educated at the University College School in London and then in Brussels and Hanover. Upon completion of his duties he took a fling at the Stock Exchange and failed. Burdened with debts at the age of 27 he turned to law. Eleven years later he had paid his obligations in full and had become a Queen’s Counsel.
His success as an advocate was astonishing and immediate. When Asquith became Prime Minister, Isaacs was named Solicitor-General and later Attorney-General. About the time he was knighted in 1911 he began developing with Lloyd George the program of social Liberalism. He had a brief and uneventful parliamentary career which he abandoned to become Lord Chief Justice, the first Jew given such a post in England.
As Lord Chief Justice he was able and dignified but he laid aside the ermine when the War broke out in order to aid Britain solve the commercial and financial problems that arose. This led to his heading the Anglo-French Loan Mission to the United States in 1915. Two years later he was named High Commissioner and special ambassador to the United States and in 1918 was appointed ambassador.
The end of the War found India seething with unrest. At the height of the trouble Premier Lloyd George selected Lord Reading as Viceroy of India, which next to the Crown, is the highest post an Englishman can hold. Thus Lord Reading, who had first seen India nearly fifty years before as a cabin boy, returned in regal splendor in 1921. For five years he faced Indian hostility and then retired. When he returned to England he was made a Marquis.
Lord Reading has been tremendously interested in Palestine. He is an officer of the Rutenberg Company. In the course of the lengthy diplomatic negotiations between the various Jewish leaders and the British government concerning Palestine Lord Reading was frequently consulted by the Jewish leaders and was tremendously helpful in the protracted pourparlers.
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.
