Otto Jaffe

{{Short description|German-born British businessman and mayor}} {{Use British English|date=May 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Infobox Politician | image = Sir Otto Jaffe.jpg | caption = Portrait by John Haynes-Williams | honorific_prefix = | name = Sir Otto Jaffe | honorific_suffix = JP | image_size = 225px | office = Lord Mayor of Belfast | term_start1 = 1899 | term_end1 = 1900 | predecessor1 = Sir Anderson Peeler

| successor1 = Sir Robert McConnell | term_start2 = 1904 | term_end2 = 1905 | predecessor2 = Sir Daniel Dixon | successor2 = Sir Daniel Dixon | office3 = High Sheriff of Belfast | term_start3 = 1901 | term_end3 = 1902 | predecessor3 = Sir James Henderson | successor3 = Samuel Lawther | office4 = Member of Belfast City Council | term_start4 = 1894 | term_end4 = 1916 | birth_name = Otto Moses Jaffe<ref name="nat">''UK, Naturalisation Certificates and Declarations, 1870–1916''</ref> | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=y|1846|8|13}} | birth_place = Hamburg, Germany | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1929|4|29|1846|8|13}} | death_place = London, England | party = Irish Unionist Party | profession = Businessman }}

'''Sir Otto Moses Jaffe''', JP (13 August 1846 – 29 April 1929), also spelt '''Jaffé''', was a German-born British businessman, who was twice elected Lord Mayor of Belfast and was a leader of the Jewish community in the city.

==Family== Jaffe was born in Hamburg on 13 August 1846, the third son of Daniel Joseph and Frederiké Jaffe.<ref name="Devlin">{{Cite web |last=Devlin |first=Patrick |title=Sir Otto Jaffe (1846–1929): Businessman and politician |url=https://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/1906 |access-date=26 May 2026 |website=Dictionary of Ulster Biography}}</ref> In 1852, his parents brought their family to Belfast.<ref name="Museum"/> Daniel Jaffe along with his older sons, Martin, John and Alfred, set up a business exporting linen. Otto was educated at Mr Tate's school in Holywood, County Down, and later in Hamburg and Switzerland.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dunn |first1=Emma |title=East Belfast’s Forgotten Philanthropist |url=https://www.blankgenealogy.com/histories/Biographies/Jaffe/Otto%20Jaffe%20Bio%20by%20Emma%20Dunn.pdf |website= Gladys and David Blank's Genealogy|access-date=26 May 2026}}</ref><ref name="Lunney">{{Cite web |last=Lunney |first=Linde |date=October 2009 |title=Jaffé, Sir Otto |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/jaffe-sir-otto-a4250 |access-date=26 May 2026 |website= Dictionary of Irish Biography|doi=10.3318/dib.004250.v1}}</ref>

==Marriage== Otto Jaffe married Paula Hertz, daughter of Moritz Hertz from Braunschweig on 8 March 1879.<ref>''Belfast Newsletter'', 11 March 1879</ref><ref name= "Lunney"/> They had two sons, Arthur Daniel and William Edward Berthold Jaffe.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Census Record |url=https://nationalarchives.ie/collections/search-the-census/view-pdf/?doc=nai000723039 |access-date=26 May 2026|website=National Archives (Ireland)}}</ref>

==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. He became a naturalised citizen in 1888.<ref name="nat"/> In 1894, he successfully agitated for the reporting and destruction of derelicts in the North Atlantic Ocean.{{citation needed|date=March 2014}}

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 Newtownards Road, also known as Strand Spinning. This provided work for 350 people, rising to 650 in 1914 when the company expanded to make munitions.<ref>CityMatters Nov–Dec 2009</ref> He was lavishly charitable<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/Alumni/CampaignforQueens/DonorRoll/EarlyBenefactorProfiles/SirOttoJaffe/ |title=Queen's University Belfast: Sir Otto Jaffe |access-date=5 June 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070604211328/http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/Alumni/CampaignforQueens/DonorRoll/EarlyBenefactorProfiles/SirOttoJaffe/ |archive-date=4 June 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and contributed to Queen's College, now Queen's University Belfast. <ref>[http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/detaild.cfm?DID=20975 Manuscripts Catalogue – Document Details]</ref>

==Religion== Otto Jaffe took a keen interest in the Jewish community of Belfast. He was life-president of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation,<ref name = "Lunney"/> which worshipped at the Great Victoria Street synagogue. His father established it in 1871.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.blankgenealogy.com/getperson.php?personID=I5255&tree=Blank1|title=Sir Otto Moses Jaffe b. 1846 Altona, Germany d. 29 Apr 1929 London, England: Blank Family|website=www.blankgenealogy.com|access-date=2019-10-14}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/top-10-famous-people-buried-in-belfast-city-cemetery/|title=10 Most Famous people buried in Belfast City Cemetery|last=Ireland Before You Die|date=2014-10-21|website=Ireland Before You Die|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-10-14}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Museum">{{Cite web |title=Sir Otto Jaffe |url=https://jewishmuseum.ie/jews-of-ireland/prominent_people/sir-otto-jaffe/ |access-date=26 May 2026 |website=Irish Jewish Museum}}</ref> He opened it, in 1904, wearing his mayoral regalia. Three years later with his wife, Paula, they set up the Jaffe Public Elementary School on the Cliftonville Road (where, for two years, Maxim Litvinov, the future Soviet foreign minister, taught languages).<ref name="Whelan">{{Cite news |last=Whelan |first=Dave |date=17 May 2014 |title=Belfast: 10 little known facts from the quirky to downright unbelievable |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/belfast-10-little-known-facts-from-the-quirky-to-downright-unbelievable/a/117529549.html |access-date=26 May 2026 |work=Belfast Telegraph}}</ref>

==Politics== In 1888 Otto Jaffe had been naturalised as a British citizen<ref name= "Museum"/> 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.<ref name="Mayors">{{Cite web |title=Former Lord Mayors from 1892 |url=https://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/Council/Your-Council/Former-Mayors-and-Lord-Mayors#425-2 |access-date=26 May 2026 |website=Belfast City Council}}</ref> As mayor, he launched an appeal for the dependants of soldiers fighting in the Boer War, £10,000 was raised. On 5 March 1900, he was knighted at Dublin Castle by Lord Cadogan, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.<ref>{{Cite new|work= The Times |title=Court Circular|date=6 March 1900|page=8 |issue=36082}}</ref> 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 RMS ''Lusitania'' passenger liner was torpedoed by a German submarine of the coast of County Cork on 7 May 1915, resulting 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.<ref>[http://www-archives.chu.cam.ac.uk/perl/node?a=a;reference=CHAR%2013%2F37%2F5 The Churchill Papers: A catalogue]</ref> Society women refused support for the Children's Hospital so long as Jaffe and his wife remained on the board.

In a letter to the ''Northern Whig'' newspaper in May 1915, Sir Otto stated:<blockquote> "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. </blockquote> He also described himself as being "overwhelmed with pain and sorrow".

After twenty-five years of service, he resigned his post 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 April 1929.<ref name= "jew1">{{cite book|last= Keogh|first= Dermot|year=1998|title=Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland|publisher=Cork University Press|location=Cork, Ireland|isbn=978-1-85918-150-8|page=69}}</ref> Lady Jaffe was too ill to attend his funeral, and she died a few months later, in August 1929.

==Memorial== On 21 January 1874 Otto's father, Daniel Joseph Jaffe, died in Nice. Martin Jaffe (Otto's elder brother) secured a plot in the City Cemetery, which became the Jewish Cemetery. To commemorate his father Otto also had a Jaffe Memorial Fountain erected in Victoria Square. In 1933 it was moved to the Botanic Gardens, but in 2008 was restored and returned close to its original site in Victoria Square opposite the Old Town Hall.<ref>"Jaffe Fountain." Memorial Drinking Fountains. https://memorialdrinkingfountains.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/jaffe-fountain/ accessed 23 January 2020</ref> There is also a blue plaque on the side of the Ten Square Hotel at the top of Linenhall Street in Belfast, placed there by the Ulster History Circle marking where his office was located.

==Arms== {{Infobox COA wide |escutcheon = Argent a chevron Azure between in chief two chaplets and in base a ship in full sail on waves of the sea all Proper on a chief Gules the Castle of Hamburg of the first between two lions passant Or. |crest = On a wreath of the colours an eagle displayed with wings inverted between two oak branches all Proper. |motto = Deus Nobiscum |notes = Granted 14 December 1900 by Sir Arthur Edward Vicars, Ulster King of Arms<ref>{{cite web|url=https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000529301/StaffViewMARC#tabnav |publisher=National Library of Ireland |accessdate=2 November 2022 |page=159 |title=Grants and Confirmations of Arms Volume J|year=1898 }}</ref> }}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Sources== *Byrne, Art & McMahon, Sean (1991). ''Great Northerners'', Poolbeg Press, {{ISBN|1-85371-106-3}}

{{s-start}} {{s-civ}} {{succession box|title=Lord Mayor of Belfast|before=James Henderson|after=R. J. McConnell|years=1899–1900}} {{succession box|title=High Sheriff of Belfast|before=James Henderson|after=Samuel Lawther|years=1901–1902}} {{succession box|title=Lord Mayor of Belfast|before=Daniel Dixon|after=Daniel Dixon|years=1904–1905}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaffe, Otto}} Category:1846 births Category:1929 deaths Category:19th-century British Jews Category:19th-century German Jews Category:19th-century Irish Jews

Category:20th-century British Jews Category:20th-century Irish Jews Category:German emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:High sheriffs of Belfast Category:Irish people of German-Jewish descent Category:Irish Unionist Party politicians Category:Jewish British politicians Category:Jewish Irish politicians Category:Jewish mayors of places in Ireland Category:Jewish mayors of places in the United Kingdom Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Lord mayors of Belfast Category:Members of Belfast City Council Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Category:Politicians from Belfast