PRO 508116 and HO 144/13826
Mordecai Cohen was born in Salonica, the Ottoman Empire, on October 12, 1899 to Isaac Cohen (deceased by 1929) and Leah Cohen, née Aron, both of Ottoman nationality. Cohen was known as John Mordecai Cohen since 1905, when his parents brought him to the United Kingdom at the age of six. (Cohen’s Central Register of Aliens card indicates that he arrived in 1908). Cohen resided with his parents at Lilley House, Brick Lane, E., 6. Laleham Buildings, Calvert Avenue Shoreditch, where they remained until 1907. They then moved to 6 Laleham Buildings, Calvert Avenue, Shoreditch.
Cohen attended the Rochelle Street Council School, E. until late 1914, when he was 14 years of age. He then enrolled in the Mansford Street Central (L.C.C.) Secondary School. After leaving school at the age of 16, Cohen was employed as an office-boy/junior clerk with S. Figgis & Co. of Fenchurch Street, E.C. for three months. He then moved on to a similar job with McQueen & Co. of Fore Street, E.C., where he remained for about a year. Following that, he became a shop assistant with A. Weiner, Exhibition Road, South Kensington for 2 years. He held the same job with A. Sarageusse of 120 Houndsditch, E. until January 20, 1919, when he set up a business as a tobacconist at 26 Earl Street, Finsbury Pavement, E.C. He gave this up in March 1919 and then worked for A. Weiner of 7 Dover Street, W. In November of that year, he began as a salesman with the Vigo Art Galleries (later trading as “Roffe and Raphael”), at 6a Vigo Street, W. 1, where he remained until June 1930. In this latter job, he also bought and sold carpets and other items on his own account, intending to open a business under the title of J. C. Bennett & Co. However, the Home Office refused to grant permission for Cohen to use this as a business name. On November 30, 1927, Cohen applied for permission to trade in partnership with J. Benardout under the title of Dalmeny Art Galleries. This request was also refused. On August 13, 1930, he applied for permission to trade with Benardout under the title of J. Benardout & Co., which was granted the following month.
On March 27, 1926, the Cohen family moved to 19 Camden Gardens, Shepherds Bush, W.12. At some point therefore, his mother and two sisters moved to 41 Lime Grove, Shepherds Bush, W. 12, where Cohen still resided at the time of his application in 1930, and where he contributed £2.10.0 weekly towards his support. Both of Cohen’s sisters, Gentil and Julia, carried Alien Registration certificates. Julia was fined £10 by the Thames Police on March 21, 1925 for failing to register at the appropriate time, a reminder of the constraints under which Ottoman immigrants lived years after the war’s ends. In 1928, Cohen visited France for five days but reported no other travel in his application. At the time of his application, Cohen was unmarried, had no children, and had been in the United Kingdom for about a quarter of a century.
Cohen’s application provides many details about his business as a carpet dealer in partnership with J. Benardout. The firm opened on August 1, 1930 on the ground floor and basement of 183 Brompton Road, Kensington, paying an annual rent of £650, inclusive, and also occupying a workshop at 41 Cheval Place, Kensington, paying an annual rent of £135, inclusive. Cohen and Benardout employed eight other individuals, seven of whom were British subjects, who collectively earned £24.15.0 weekly. Cohen introduced £1,100 in capital to what was a “going concern” (a term of art meaning a business that is financially stable and can continue to operate indefinitely). The stock of the company as of September 30, 1930 was £5,586. In two months, the partners sold £1860 worth of merchandise. In that period, they garnered a net profit of £274. Aside from profits, each partner earned £10 weekly in wages. After a reserve fund had been created from the profits, the remainder was divisible between them on a 50 percent basis.
Cohen hired Mole & Mole, Trained Investigators and Confidential Enquiry Agents, to assist him with his naturalization application. His referees included the accountant Harry Norden, who had known him for over 23 years through Cohen’s late father; the hotel proprietor and former merchant tailor Leonard Harris Edgard, who knew Cohen for upwards of twelve years and met him when Cohen became a customer of Edgard’s brother; the carpet merchant Michael Forde, who met Cohen over a decade earlier in the business; and the accountant Joseph Mazoyer Moore, who first met Cohen over a decade earlier when Moore was employed to examine the accounts of the Vigo Art Galleries. Moore admired Cohen for his comprehensive knowledge of the Oriental carpet trade and his ability as a business man.
Cohen’s motivations for applying for naturalization were that he had lived in the country since a child, was educated there, his long residence made him British in sympathies and interests, and he sought to obtain the rights and capacities of a natural-born subject. In his application, Cohen claimed to be a Spanish Jew. He had registered with police during World War I as an “Ottoman (Spanish Jew)” and his naturalization certificate bears the same nationality. Reverend David Bueno de Mesquita, Senior Minister of the Spanish and Portuguese Jew Congregation in London, wrote Cohen a reference letter in 1930, attesting to Cohen’s nationality as an Ottoman (Spanish Jew) and as a member of the community of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, “a community which was opposed to Government which were at war with His Majesty King George V in 1918.” He was between the ages of 30 and 32 when he applied for naturalization (1929-1931) and was naturalized in January of 1931. His application references the naturalization application number of his partner, Joseph Cohen Benardout, who was naturalized on April 29, 1930. Subfiles 11-13 and 15-18 were destroyed. This application was originally classified until 2032 and declassified at my request in 2008.
Addendum: In 1978, John Cohen bequeathed all the shares in his carpet store, “C. John (Rare Rugs) Limited,” at 70 South Audley Street, London W. 1, to his nephew Leon Philip Sassoon. At this writing (November 7, 2024), C. John is the last Sephardi-owned carpet store of England and operates online at https://www.cjohn.com/. C. John, owned by Sassoon, remains the world’s only fine carpet gallery to hold the Royal Warrant as supplier of carpets to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.