HO 334/26/9982
Nissim Behar was born in Constantinople to Jacob and Victoria Behar, both French subjects. He was 35 years old in late 1897 when he was naturalized, which would mean that he was born in 1862. He was an importer of Oriental carpets, rugs, and embroideries and was married with four minor children living with him (Victoria Behar, 13, Leon Jacob, 10, Albert Moise, 8, and Winifred Jane, 5). He applied for British naturalization as a French citizen. His naturalization application does not survive.
Online information provides further details about the family.[1] The full names and dates of the couple were Nissim Menahem Behar (1861?-1928) and Mary Jane Canham (1858-1923). They married on March 16, 1884. When Nissim was 49, in April of 1911, the family lived at 143 East Dulwich Grove in Camberwell, London, where he also worked. In 1917, at the age of 55 or 56, the family lived at Ashcombe, London Road, Dorking, Surrey. In 1928, when he was 66 or 67, the family resided at 96 Kensington Crescent, Kensington, London. The probate date of Nissim’s will is March 3, 1928. Upon his death, his estate was valued at £6,258.14.5.
Mary Jane Canham was born to William Canham (ca. 1830-1912) and Anne Shearman (1831?-1887). In 1861, at the age of 3, she lived at 13 Union Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. In 1871, at the age of 13, she lived at 4 Peas Hill in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. In 1911, at the age of 52, she lived at 143 East Dulwich Grove, Camberwell, London. In 1917, at the age of 58 or 59, she lived at Ashcombe, London Road, in Dorking, Surrey. She was buried at the Dorking Municipal cemetery.
Their firstborn, Victoria Mazaltov, married Sidney Albert Parsons (1885-1969). In 1885, she lived in Fulham, London. In 1939, at the age of 54, she lived at 5 Newstead Avenue, Crofton, Orpington, Kent. In 1982, at the age of 97, she lived at 41 East Street in Littlehampton, W. Sussex. She was buried in Winchester, Hants. The value of her estate was around £25,000.
Leon Jacob Behar (1887-1962) was baptized at the Bavarian Chapel on Warwick Street in Soho, London. In 1911, at the age of 24, he lived at 143 East Dulwich Grove, Camberwell, London and worked as a clerk to an East India Merchant in Camberwell, London. In 1921, at the age of 34, he lived at 92 Ederline Avenue, Norbury, London and worked as a shipping merchant at the Service Rowe Company, Shipping Merchants, at 14 St. Mary Axe, London, Norbury, London. In 1939 at the age of 52 he lived at 16 Dynevor Gardens, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. In 1947, at the age of 59 or 60 he worked as an estate agent. In 1962, at the age of 75, he lived at the General Hospital at Rochford, Essex. He married Harriet Mary Murphy (1888-1947) and thereafter Rose Anna Marguerite Shayes (1896-1977). In 1947, at the age of 60, he was a beneficiary in the probate of the will of Harriet Mary Murphy. At the age of 74-75 he lived at 9 Percy Road in in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. In 1887, he lived in Lewisham, London and Soho, London. When he died in 1963 in London, he left behind an estate of £6,448 10s.
Albert Moise Behar (born 1889 or 1890) married Catherine Elizabeth Bennett (1887-1978). In 1890 he lived in Brockley, London. He was baptized late that year at the Bavarian Chapel on Warwick Street. In 1911, at the age of 21, he lived at 143 East Dulwich Grove in Camberwell, London and worked in wholesale drapery. In 1917, he was married to Catherine Behar. The couple lived at 74 Woodwarde Road, East Dulwich, London.[2] At the age of 26 or 27 he served as a gunner in the Honorary Artillery Company, 309th Siege Battery in France. He was killed in action at the age of 27 in Calais, France on October 12, 1917 and lays buried in the Etaples Military Cemetery in Calais.
The youngest, Winifred Jane Behar, was born September 13, 1892 and was baptized on November 2, 1892 at Our Lady of the Assumption. On April 12, 1911, when she was 18 years of age, she lived at 143 East Dulwich Grove. In 1916, she volunteered with the British Army Red Cross at Horton Hospital in Epsom, Surrey. She married Thomas Arhur Boulton in 1919 at the Bavarian Chapel on Warwick Street in Soho, London.
The Behar family is an example of a likely unsynagogued, intermarried Ottoman Jewish father in the Oriental carpet trade who gave most of his children traditional Jewish names and likely raised them as Christians.
[1] https://www.attagab.co.uk/fam10919.html (accessed February 2, 2026), citing England & Wales Marriages 1837 – 2005, vol. 2a P 426; England Roman Catholic Parish Baptisms; Census 1911 E&W. RG14 PN83 RD27 SD2 ED14 SN110; British Army British Red Cross Volunteers 1914 – 1918.
[2] https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/498958/albert-moise-behar/ (accessed February 3, 2026).