Victoria Ner Mercado was born Victoria Behar in Istanbul of British Indian parents who were British subjects; her father was born in British India. Her brother was M. V. Behar, proprietor of Cardinal & Hartford, Ltd. of 108/110 High Holborn, London and of V. Behar, Ltd., of 300 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. Victoria married Maurice Mercado at the Hotel Levy Buyukdere, in Bosphorous, Istanbul. They moved to England in 1902. In 1907, the couple launched a carpet business in Birmingham, which they later transferred to Leeds. In 1916, the Home Office noted that the firm was called “The Anglo-Continental Co.,” which Maurice changed to “Mercado & Co.” in 1917. It had a capital of £2,000. Since Victoria had contributed all but £200 of this amount, the Home Office considered her (rather than her husband) the main proprietor of the business. According to the letter of the law, Victoria was an “enemy subject” by reason of her marriage to an Ottoman subject, but the Home Office decided that for the purpose of Mercado’s naturalization case, she could be “regarded as an Englishwoman carrying on business in England.” Before World War I, about one tenth of the firm’s goods were procured from an Ottoman firm in Izmir, and the rest in England. During the war, the company acquired its stock solely from England. Victoria had purchased a freehold house, in which she resided.

            On April 27, 1914, the couple adopted a child named Robert Isaiah Behar, born on November 17, 1910 in Brussels, Belgium to Victoria’s brother Albert Behar (a.k.a. Albert Isaiah Mercado), who was a British subject born in Istanbul. The Home Office decided not to automatically naturalize Robert under his adoptive father, who was naturalized in 1927, after a thirteen-year legal ordeal. Albert Behar’s pseudonym is strong evidence (together with parallel testimony from the records of Isaac Behar of Glasgow) that many Sephardi Jews had two sets of names, one marking association with the father, the other with the mother.