Edward Sassoon

"Hythe"
Sassoon as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, February 1900

Sir Edward Albert Sassoon, 2nd Baronet (20 June 1856 – 24 May 1912) was a British businessman and politician.

Early life

A member of the Sassoon family, he was born on 20 June 1856 in Bombay, India. He was the son of Hannah Moise and Albert Abdullah David Sassoon (1818–1896). He graduated from the University of London. He served as a major in the Middlesex Yeomanry (Duke of Cambridge's Hussars).

Career

He was elected as the Liberal Unionist Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Hythe in March 1899. Active in Jewish community affairs, he served as a vice-president of Jews' College, London and the Anglo-Jewish Association.

He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1896 on the death of his father.

Personal life

In 1887, he married Aline Caroline de Rothschild (1867–1909), daughter of Baron Gustave de Rothschild and Cecile Anspach from Paris. They had two children:

• Philip Albert Gustave David (1888–1939).
• Sybil Rachel Bettie Cécile, Marchioness of Cholmondeley (1894–1989).

He died in 1912 at the age of fifty-five. His body was placed in a mausoleum in an Indian style, behind his house at Eastern Terrace, Brighton. The Sassoon Mausoleum had been built in 1876 by his father as a family resting place. However, there were no more burials after 1933, when it was emptied and sold, becoming first a furniture store, then a decorator's, next a restaurant and finally the ballroom of the Hanbury Arms public house. In 2006, the building was again sold to be converted to a private members' club.

His great-great-grandson is actor Jack Huston.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir Edward Sassoon
• Sir Edward Sassoon in the Jewish Encyclopedia