JOSEPH SAMUEL RUBINSTEIN

1852 - March 1915

The trouble is I didn't know him very well. When he died at the age of 63 (13 years younger than I am now) it seemed as if the world had come to an end, but that is natures way with every generation. There was an obituary in the "Jewish Chronical" , which made me so angry that I called on the editor to protest, and made an awful fool of myself. From the point of view of the Jewish community he was no more than a successful pushfull solicitor - a business man - who took no part in communal affairs (except as a moderate subscriber to jewish charities), and I dont think they even refered to the place he had made for himself in musical London - partly as a by-product of his proffessional career. He had played a decisive part in the negoation which led to the building of Queens Hall (as recorded in Elkins History of the Hall), and his and his wife's Musical At Homes (1st Sunday of every month during the 20 odd years from the opening of the hall to the outbreak of World War 1) were known and popular among musicians of all categories. he was most happy and alive on these occasions and one was apt to think of him as a genial host. But that, in retrospect doesn't tell you much about him.

Before his marriage he was "Joe" to everybody (after all Joseph Samuel Rubinstein was his name). After his marriage he became "Jack" - my mother preferred it. In her family, though it was correct to belong to a synagogue, and even to take in "The Jewish Chronicle", it was not correct to emphasise ones jewishness, and to make use of jewish or yiddish expressions was "common" (in the perjorative sense). As Australians who had made money, the all-important thing was to forget (or even to be unaware of the fact) that the family had emigrated to Australia in the early days, from Whitechapel (a place of unspeakable associations), and as I discovered after my mothers death (and the shock of the discovery might have killed her otherwise), the first member of the family went out as a jewish convice, but that is another story. Suffice it here that "Joe" was not a good name for the snobs of the Australian Marks's so on marriage he became Jack Rubinstein for the rest of his life.

He was a good husband, also a good father. He delighted in us as small children, planning surprise presents under cover of a 'magic handkerchief' when we came to visit him in bed every morning. And he was no good whatever at punnishing naughtiness. In fact, I only remember one occasion when he attempted to do so - with a slipper, when I was about 6 or 7. It was such a feeble effort that I couldn't help laughing out loud as soon as his back was turned - and I'm still ashamed to remember that. He was good tempered and tolerant, but as we grew older we were not so amusing, and I remember one day when I was 14 or so making the depressing discovery that I was boring him. As an adolescent, especially after my conversion to womens sufferage, I began to fine him boring - on that subject anyway. Once when we were playing billiards (as we usually did after dinner), he made some sneering remark about a sufferagette mother (who years later became my mother-in-law) that so annoyed me that I refused to continue the conversiation - though we continued our game of billiards in silence to the end.
Stanley remembers that an old and wealthy client Henrietta Marx used to boast to him that his father had wanted to marry her. And the other evening, sitting next to Irene Schasser at the dinner of The Musicians Company, with Stanley in the Chair, Irene mentioned casually that her mother had told her that "Joe"(the name by which JSR was known to her) had been in love with her. And indeed there may have been others. That was a side of JSR of which I was wholy ignorant. He was a good and faithful husband to my mother - of that at least I am sure. But that again doesn't tell one much about him. Or does it? [HFR notes]
Politically, he was a Conservative member of the Kensington Borough Council and a life member of the National Liberal Club. Clashes between us became inevitable, but his disaproval of my left-wing sympathies softened noticably when I emerged as a budding playwright. He had an almost childlike admiration for authorship, and I suspect that his admission to the Authors Society, on the strength of his numerous legal publications, was a red letter day in his life. He was a regular attendand at their annual dinners, where he usually picked up a new author or two for our next Musical At Home. Near the end of his life, he spent hours trying to write a play the idea for which had come to him in a dream. He was quite unable to see that the idea was a pretty feeble one, and it was a great dissapointment to him when he had to abandon the project out of sheer inability to carry on with it. I think it was a consolation to him to see my first play produced in Manchester - and subsequently at the Coronet Theatre. I was quite taken aback at the warmth with which he shook my hand after my first night speach from the stage.

[Continued 26.2.68]

Yes it would be a great joy to him to know that his three sons had all published books - and nothing would have given him greater pleasure than to attend the cocktail party at the Mansion House to celebrate the birthday of "London Historians". But perhaps he was at his happiest - and best - as a host welcoming musical celebrities at those first Sunday of every month parties at Addison Road. And one can imagine what it would have meant to him to be present as a guest on a Saturday night at the Savage Club with SJR in the Chair - or still more, at the recent Musicians Dinner at Stationers Hall under the same Chairmanship.

He was probably an agnostic - but a very tolerant one. He never went to a synagogue, but on the Day of Atonement he stayed away from the office, and usually went for a long walk with his brother-in-law, our uncle Fred; and whether they had lunch together or fasted was nobodys business. We all had a great break-fast meal in the evening, when the rest of us could claim to have fasted more or less.

his father, Samuel Joseph Rubinstein, had been an ultra orthodox jew - one result of which was that Joe had left home as soon as he could afford to be independent. although he remained on friendly terms with both his parents, as far as I could judge. He was not a demonstrative man (in contrast to his wife who was over demonstrative); but I remember noticing signs of grief when news of the death of his mother (our Grandma Rubinstein) was broken to us.

According to cousin Ernest "Joe" had been unkindly treated by his father, who showed a marked preference for his other sons, because they were better-looking. JSR had never been a handsome man and his apperance was not improved by a broken nose. (I seem to remember hearing that had been caused by a cricket ball, but I can't picture him on a cricket field - or on a football field for that matter. He had been educated at a commercial school in germany - one of the grievences against his father , according to Ernest). Remembering his occasional meloncholy moods, I suspect that the family background weighed on his mind. He was one of four brothers and a sister. Two of the brothers, David and Maurice lived with their parents each keeping a gentile mistress he would have married but for fear of the parental curse.

Returning to JSR, have I mentioned that he had a good sense of humour and would tell jokes against himself. His career at Raymond Bldgs coincided with that of Benjamin Shepherd, who joined the firm as an office boy, and outlived my father before retiring as a pillar of the firm, after more than sixty years service (if I remember rightly). He used to tell a story over which he and my father had many a laugh.

Among the earliest of my fathers clients was on of numerous sons and daughters of a very wealthy jew, on whos death a great family quarrel arose as to whose solicitor was to be instructed to act for the executors. Eventually my father was summoned with the other solicitors to attend a meeting at which the issue was to be decided. Mr Shepherd recalled my father [JSR] rushing into his room , on returning from the meeting, in great excitement, describing how, after terrific argument , his champion convinced the whole company that Joe Rubinstein was the most careful lawyer in London. "So you've got the will, Ben" cried my father putting his hand in his coat pocket and then drawing it out again. "Oh my God. I must have left the will in the train". (?) were still handling some of the trusts of the will, when he told me that story.

EBR and HFR on JSR.

It was a cruelty on the part of his father (SJR) to discriminate between him and his brothers David and Maurice (his senior and junior respectively) by sending both the latter to a good school in Brussels at appropriate ages, while consigning JSR to a rotten school in Germany at a preposterously early age...

On the other hand it was perhaps a mercy for JSR to be out of the way of a father who disliked him.

On his return from Germany, he was apprenticed to, or employed by Ruskin & Goth, the stationers in Oxford Street [I remember when I first heard this wondering why the trade of stationer should have been chosen; His mother had been brought up in the stationery business and presumably could have given him a letter of introduction. HFR], but had a serious attack of typhoid, as a result of which he lost his job. Meanwhile Maurice had been articled and was receiving expensive coaching for his legal exams. JSR, on recovering from his illness, was permitted to follow in Maruice's footsteps, except that he had to do without any coaching. Visitors to the house never saw him during this period, as he was always in his own room studying. He was thus, as it were, excluded from the family circle and, on passing his final ('76), immediately signaled his independance by leaving home and setting up in chambers on his own.
Old Mrs Henrietta Marx (nee Wellman) tells me that her father, Soloman Wellman, who had a big shop in Regents Street, was very friendly with SJR in the Argyll St days, and later. She recalled the house in Argyll St but never noticed any signs that a business was carried on there. She recalled many happy hours spent with the Rubinstein "boys", and seems to have had quite a "pash" for Joe, particularly admiring his tallent for drawing room games, and as a comic songster(Can anyone tell me where Nancy's gone was her favourite. I can dimly recall his singing it to us as children). She thinks Sophia "had a lot to put up with".