Solomon Joel

Politics

Early in his business career he supported the

Joel married a beautiful young actress named Ellen "Nellie" Ridley. While highly successful in business, in his personal life familial relationships were not always cordial. His dislike of his daughter Doris' choice of spouse continued until she divorced after four years, at which point he resumed normal relations. Joel also disapproved of one of his sons, Stanhope's, marriage for two years. His daughter Eileen became the first woman jockey to win an open race when she rode Hogier to victory in the Town Plate at Newmarket. His son Dudley Joel was elected the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Dudley but was killed in action during World War II.

Joel's brother Woolf Joel was murdered in Johannesburg in 1898, probably by a blackmailing con-man named Karl Frederic Moritz Kurtze going under the pseudonym of Ludwig von Veltheim. Although there was plenty of evidence that Veltheim had been threatening Woolf Joel, the defense was that Veltheim had not been properly compensated for planning a kidnap scheme against the Boer leader Paul Kruger. That, the all Boer jury, and the mixture of anti-British and anti-Semitic feelings towards the deceased enabled Veltheim to avoid conviction. Freed, he was immediately deported from the Boer territories. For the next decade, Veltheim was following a series of con-games in Europe, but in 1907, he turned up in London, and started making threatening demands against Joel, who reported him to Scotland Yard, and the police arrested Veltheim. There was a trial for extortion, and Veltheim used the same defense he had previously used in Johannesburg, but the British jury was unconvinced and found him guilty. He was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment.

Joel's interests were wide and varied and included many business concerns. He was also kept busy with his enlarged family's diamond and gold mining interests, activities in brewing, the theatre (the Drury Lane Theatre in London) and railways (the City and South London Railway).

He was renowned for being a generous man who purchased the first motorised ambulance for the

Thoroughbred horse racing

Joel had success in

He and his brother Jack Barnato Joel had a long running rivalry on the turf as owners, with Jack having the greater success over the years including 2 Epsom Derby winners, Sunstar and Humorist.^[3]

Cricket

In the 1924–25 South African cricket season, Joel organised a team of mostly English players to tour the country and play matches against the national and provincial teams. The team was known as S. B. Joel's XI and included leading players Ewart Astill, George Geary, Percy Holmes, Alec Kennedy, Charlie Parker, Jack Russell, Lionel Tennyson and Ernest Tyldesley.^[4]

Death and legacy

Joel died in 1931 at Moulton Paddocks^[1] and immediately his estate and possessions were sold at auction. The Home Stud Farm was sold in 1932 but continued until the 1980s. Moulton Paddocks passed into the ownership of Joel's son Dudley, but the house fell into disrepair following his death.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Joel family
• Gustav Imroth

References

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa vol. 6 (Nasou, Cape Town 1972)
  ISBN 0-625-00322-5
• Ace of diamonds,: The story of Solomon Barnato Joel as told to Lloyd Mayer Stanhope Joel (Frederick Muller Ltd. London 1958) ASIN: B0007KCDIK
• The Diamond Magnates Brian Roberts (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972) [P. 232-245] SBN 684-13344-X

External links

• Thoroughbred racehorse Polymelus
• Oxford DNB
• Newspaper clippings about Solomon Joel in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW