Sir Henry d’Avigdor Goldsmid, chairman of the Bank Leumi in Britain, died last weekend at the age of 67. A leading Jewish member of the English aristocracy, he held many other positions in Jewish and non-Jewish life. He was president of the Jewish Colonization Association and a former chairman of the Anglo-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
A respected member of the Conservative Party, he was MP for Walsall South from 1955 to 1974, and for two years served as Parliamentary private secretary to the Housing Minister, Duncan Sandys, now Lord Duncan-Sandys.
Sir Henry, a bullion broker, was a great-grandson of Count Henry d’Avigdor, one of Napoleon Ill’s nobles. He was a member of the firm of Mocatta and Goldsmid, founded in the 17th Century. In World War II he was twice mentioned in dispatches and decorated for bravery.
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