Family values

The Anglo-Jewish background of Sir Laurie Magnus, CBE, the new Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests, comes through his father, a member of a well-known and distinguished family.

The Magnus family, originally from Cassel, in Germany, settled in King’s Lynn, Norfolk in the mid-eighteenth century. Sir Laurie’s great-grandfather, Philip, married the artistic Katie Emanuel, daughter of Alderman Emanuel JP, of Southsea, and went on to a successful career as an educationalist and leading communal figure. Philip Magnus was knighted on his retirement in 1917, but his anti-Zionist views did not go down very well in the Jewish community.

Sir Laurie’s grandfather, another Laurie, married Dora Spielman, whose mother was a descendant of the Sebag-Montefiores, and whose father, Isidore, known for his interest in the arts, was knighted in 1905. His father, Hilary, married Rosemary, a niece of the poet laureate, John Masefield, and had a successful career at the English Bar.

We are sure that with this varied and interesting family history, Sir Laurie will have no problem dealing with the intricacies of government. Doreen Berger

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain

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