Otto Jaffe - Biography

Sir Otto Jaffe, JP (b. 13 August 1846, Hamburg – d. 29 April 1929, London) was a German-born British Jewish businessman and twice elected Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Family

In 1852, his parents, Daniel Joseph and Frederiké brought their family of four boys and five girls from Hamburg to Belfast. Daniel Jaffe along with his older sons, Martin, John and Alfred, set up a business exporting Irish linen. See separate article on Daniel Joseph Jaffé for Martin's younger son.

Otto was educated at Mr Tate’s school in Holywood, County Down and later in Hamburg and Switzerland.

Marriage

He married Paula Hertz from Brunswick, New York in 1879. They had two sons Arthur and William; one became a barrister and the other a London company director.

Commerce

From 1867 to 1877 he lived and worked in New York. In 1877, his brothers retired, so he returned to Belfast to head the family business, “The Jaffe Brothers” at Bedford Street. He built it up to become the largest linen exporter in Ireland.

He was a member of the Belfast Harbour Commission. In 1894, he successfully agitated for the reporting and destruction of derelicts in the North Atlantic Ocean.

He was a Justice of the Peace, a governor of the Royal Hospital, a member of the Irish Technical Education Board and a member of the Senate of Queen's College, which later became Queen's University of Belfast. He was the German consul in Belfast. He was an active member of the committee which got the Public Libraries Act extended to Belfast, leading to the first free library being established there.

In 1910 he erected the Jaffe Spinning Mill on the Newtonards Road, also known as Strand Spinning. This provided work for 350 people, rising to 650 in 1914 when the company expanded to make munitions. He was lavishly charitable and contributed to Queen's College.

Religion

Otto Jaffe took a keen interest in the Jewish community of Belfast. He was life-president of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation, which worshipped at the Great Victoria Street synagogue. His father established it on 7 July 1871. Between 1871 and 1903 this congregation increased from fifty-five to over a thousand. He paid most of the £4,000 cost of building the synagogue in Annesley Street. He opened it, in 1904, wearing his mayoral regalia. Three years later with his wife, Paula, they set up the 'Jaffe School for the Jewish Children of Belfast' on the Cliftonville Road.

Politics

In 1888 Otto Jaffe had been naturalised as a British citizen and denaturalised as a German citizen. He was a member of the Irish Unionist Party. He represented St Anne's Ward for the Belfast Corporation in 1894 and was elected Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1899. As mayor, he launched an appeal for the dependants of soldiers fighting in the Boer War. £10,000 was raised. In March 1900, he was knighted by Lord Cadogan. In 1901 he was High Sheriff of Belfast, and in 1904 he was again elected Lord Mayor.

The outbreak of war saw anti-German sentiment and when the Lusitania passenger liner was torpedoed by a German submarine of the coast of Cork on 7 May 1915 which resulted in the death of 1,000 people, anti-German feeling in Britain and Ireland rose to breaking point. Even though he was loyal to the Crown, and his eldest son Arthur and his nephew were serving in the British Army, Sir Otto was accused of being a German spy.

"how anyone who has any knowledge of me and my life would think that I could approve of the horrible and detestable actions of which she (Germany) has been guilty is almost beyond my comprehension.

After twenty-five years of service, he resigned his post on as Alderman of Windsor Ward for Belfast City Council in June 1916 when he was almost 70 years of age and took up residence in London, where he died in 1929. Lady Jaffe was too ill to attend his funeral, and she died a few months later in August of the same year.

Memorial

On 21 January 1874, his father, Daniel Joseph Jaffe died in Nice. Martin Jaffe (Otto's older brother) secured a plot in the City Cemetery, which became the Jewish Cemetery. Daniel was the first Jew to be interred there. The Jaffe monument was erected.

This monument and the headstones have been vandalised. Recently, Belfast City Council resolved to erect a sculpture representing Otto Jaffe at Carlisle Circus.

See also

• History of the Jews in Ireland
• History of the Jews in the United Kingdom

Notes

• 1991, Art Byrne and Sean McMahon, Great Northerners, Poolbeg Press, ISBN 1-85371-106-3