The headlines in our newspapers are full of news about Russia, their oil and gas, and the terrible consequences of war. It brought to my mind that I had come across a different sort of Russian Oil some time ago. It was one of those times when you are researching something and unexpectedly fall upon another story which leads you down an interesting track. A Happenstance. This is a snip from The Morning Post of 1st October 1832. A long advertisement, you can't read it , so I will transcribe the salient points. Englishmen, will you be so good as to hear reason? It is time you should open your eyes and not be hoaxed by unprincipled persons. Of late several have pretended to sell bears' grease balm and various other preparations, which they have the presumption to say will reproduce hair on bald places. ....... The fact is it is all humbug: there never was such an astonishing article, and never will be. It is against nature that where the hair has fallen off, and the roots are entirely gone from natural decay, and impossible that it should ever grow again .... it should be cut close, and by the use of RUSSIAN OIL to nourish it, it has often been experienced to grown again: but if the root is entirely gone, the Proprietor must confess that neither the Russian Oil nor any other article in the world will restore it; yet it has been proved by persons of distinction that having become bald on the crown, the remainder of their hair has been preserved by using PRINCE'S celebrated original and genuine RUSSIAN OIL. In short hundreds of ladies and gentlemen have declared that they had a fine head of hair by using Prince's Russian Oil only ...... The Proprietor confesses that he is not the inventor of Russian Oil. It is the discovery of that great physician H Myers, who about thirty years ago gave him the receipt how to prepare it .... Proprietor A Prince no. 9 Poland Street, Oxford Street ... 5s a bottle .... Also PRINCE'S RUSSIAN DYE, now improved with an extra gold ingredient, will change red or grey hair to brown or black ..... any Lady or Gentleman can dye their own hair secretly in a few minutes . Ask for Prince's improved Russian Dye with the extra gold ingredient. Half a Guinea per bottle, two bottles one pound or half a dozen large bottles, five pounds. A sketch by Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828 - 1882] showing most luxuriant hair. Anyway. I will go back to the very beginning to find out just who the purveyor of Russian Oil for hair was. His name was Abraham Prince and he came to Britain in the 1790s. He is an elusive character, which makes him more intriguing. He was of Jewish background. The first advertisement for his hair restorative appeared in the London Courier in 1804. The product was available from "Mr Prince, Dentist, no 333 Oxford Street, near Argyle Street" for 7 shillings a bottle. The thought of him being a dentist makes me shudder ...... He moved around, by 1816 he was at John Street, Oxford Street and his product was also sold through a Mr Smyth, Perfumer to His Majesty. You will start to get the idea of what he was like. By 1818 he was at 68 Charlotte Street, Portland Place. By 1822 he was finding imposters trying to sell their products as HIS Russian Hair Oil. By now he was at 9 Poland Street, just off Oxford Street. Saint James Chronicle 21 September 1822 Advert warning of Imposters. --A Prince, the original proprietor of the RUSSIA OIL, is constantly receiving information that imposters are travelling the Country with Counterfeit Russia Oil… and have made the covers of their counterfeits exactly like Prince’s and even printed on the covers “Prince’s Russian Oil” As far as I can tell this was quite a respectable address. However, all was not going smoothly. In the Public Ledger 9 April 1823 a list of insolvent debtors named Abraham Prince of Poland Street, manufacturer of Russia Oil - he owed £2,683 and had debts owing to him of £180. The Stamford Mercury 9 May 1823 had details that he had incurred debts by advertising his products in newspapers all over the country so his appeal was opposed by the proprietors of the newspapers. His debts to printers was £2,100 within 12 months. It was the second time Prince had sought the benefit of the Insolvent Act, the court could grant him no relief unless three quarters of his creditors agreed. Well he should not have been so wordy in his advertisements, they almost filled a column. By the end of 1825 the newspapers were full of the hearing of his court case, and oh, what dirty linen was about to be aired. He had had a whole series of charges of debt laid against him over several years. In December 1825 at the Insolvent Debtor's Court, one creditor, Mr Davis, opposed his discharge. He had already been discharged from his debts in 1820 and 1824, Davis wanted to hold out for some money. Davis had sold Abraham a diamond and Abraham gave him a bill of exchange, which was like a promissory note, and Davis had paid Abraham's Offerings for the Poor at the Synagogue. Abraham had promised that he would pay as he had received £500 from a Mr Rothschild and was promised the advance of another £1,000 from the same gentleman. Davis believed him as "he was a very honest man" which was followed by Laughter in Court. Another creditor was a Mr Cohen, so you get the picture of the community Abraham Prince associated with. The Commissioner of the Court threw out the case and told Abraham not to come back again. He said he would not if he could help it [laughter in court] . Also in the evidence of this case Abraham said he had a valuable "sea horse's tooth" out of which he was going to make artifical teeth. I will leave that to your imagination. It is apparent that no one really took him seriously. He was mentioned in a poem in a Satirical journal - Satirist or The Censor of the Times. 29 May 1831 Satirical poem …. Last night a messenger arrived / Smoaking: at the Strand divan!/ The only Polish news he brings/ Relates to - Hunt, the blacking man!/ Lord Ellenborough just has left/ “A vacancy for one young lady”/Prince’s Russian Oil is still / Advised by Counsellor O’Grady He complained about slanderous paragraphs about him in The Satirist. But what of the man? Further debts lead him to court again and again, and details of his life began to unravel which was all rather sad. His creditors were the proprietors of newspapers and magazines where he placed his long, wordy advertisements, and obviously then never paid. He was declared insolvent in 1801, 1820, 1824, 1825 and 1832, and on each occasion his debts averaged £1,500. Can you imagine? At various times he was in prison and his business was carried on by his children in Poland Street. His furniture was not his own but belonged to his brother in law Mr Levi Alexander. So he had a family. The Happy Infant - painted by William Charles Penn [1877 - 1868] at the Walker Art gallery, on the ArtUk website. In 1830 a Nursery Maid, Helen O'Brien had been charged with stealing various articles from her employer, Mr Abraham Prince. She said the articles of clothing had been put into her box by another servant, out of spite, and she had no intention of stealing them. She was acquitted. So we learn that there were servants in Abraham's household, and children. Throughout 1832 he continued advertising in a wide range of newspapers, which obviously cost money, and at the same time appeared in newspapers as being an insolvent debtor. The Times of 7 February 1832 described him as "Abraham Prince, a Jew, of Poland Street", and this description was then taken up by others. Does this indicate some antisemitic feeling? I don't know, or if it was quite normal to describe someone by their faith / ethnicity. Things were about to get MUCH WORSE. This painting of a pregnant lady is of Ida John [1877 - 1907], the wife of Augustus John [1878 - 1961 ] and is at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. Ida had five children and died after her last delivery. This is to illustrate the perils of being a woman. The wives (plural) of Abraham Prince had a hard life. By 1833 he was in court yet again. By now his furniture had been sold, his children had no beds to lie on, and some had even been in prison with him. And in a court case heard at the King's Bench in 1835 details of his domestic life were copied into columns of newsprint. Just off Denmark Place at the back of Denmark Street in London was one of the earliest Jewish Synagogues in London. The website called VictorianWeb has some details about it. Around 1765 a room was hired in a property at the back of Denmark Court, an alley off Denmark Place, but the congregation later moved to Dibdin's Theatre. It was one of the first synagogues for Ashkenazi Jews. Another website called Jewishgen.org describes there being a synagogue in Denmark Court from 1797 - 1826 in the building that had formerly been a theatre, and before that a picture gallery of the Royal Academy. Family Historians are wonderful, and there is a website called SynagogueScribes.com which has a database of some of the names of Jews who attended this synagogue from this period. This painting is called "Reading the Book of Esther" by William Rothenstein [1872 - 1945] and is at the Manchester Art Gallery and on ArtUk website. Back to Abraham. He had married three times and twice been divorced and had numerous children, I don't know exactly how many. Wife number one was Phebe Moses and they married on 15 January 1797, he was described as Abraham Prints son of Aharon Eliezer Prints from Breslau (then in Silesia). Wife number two was Esther Alexander and they had married on 24 November 1802. He was described as Abraham Gedalia Prints. They had children whose births were recorded at the synagogue, one daughter was Julia, another was Abigail. Julia was given the Hebrew name of Yelta as well as Julia. Abigail was given the middle name of Alexander and was born at Newman Street, off Oxford Street. Wife number three was Jane Isaacs. I have not got the date of their marriage, but Jane had at least eight children. She became so ill through being constantly pregnant that medical advice was that she should not have any more, and the only way that she could avoid getting pregnant was to be divorced! Jane was the daughter of Lazarus Isaacs, a rich diamond merchant who had a quiver full of children himself [see Psalm 127]. He was one of the wardens of the Denmark Court synagogue. Lazarus was a cantankerous man who fell out with most of his own family. In his last will and testament Lazarus Isaacs gave one son, James, a shilling as "he has deeply offended me", he didn't want his sons to go to his grave, then named three of his daughters, Harriet Lewis, Jane Prince and Fanny Samo " have greatly offended me I give and bequeath to each of them the sum of one shilling only and I hope that my beloved wife will consider their offences in the same way that I do ..." So there! Jane, now married to Abraham Prince, constantly pregnant, cut off by her own father, was then divorced from Abraham. The way this was done was that HER brothers in law, the husbands of her sisters, clubbed together to raise the money needed to go before the High Priest and obtain the divorce. This painting is called "Jews mourning in a synagogue" and is by William Rothenstien [1872 - 1945] and is at the Tate and on ArtUk website. The brothers in law raised £60 and the divorce took place in March 1834 before Solomon Herschell, the High Priest . One brother in law paid over £51 retaining £9 for expenses. Abraham thought this wrong and sued his brothers in law for the £9. When the case came to court in December 1835 the brothers in law said that they had "loaned" the money to Abraham, not given it, and wanted it back. Also involved in this sordid little scene was Abraham's son in law, James Ray/ Rae, who had married Abraham's daughter Julia (after she had had an Anglican baptism). One of the brothers in law was Kensington Lewis, a silversmith, who had married another of Lazarus Isaacs's daughters, Harriet. Lewis had originally been called Lewis Solomons, but changed his name when "he turned Christian" One of Abraham Prince's sons lived with him. Abraham was acquitted. Lord Denman agreed that a case had not been made out. That was not the end of it though. In 1836 another brother in law brought an action against Abraham for the sum supposedly loaned for the divorce and had Abraham thrown into prison. Abraham brought an action against his brother in law for malicious arrest, and the jury found for Abraham. I don't know much more about Abraham Prince and his Russian Hair Oil, I don't know when he died, or what became of him. I actually feel sorry for Abraham, in some newspapers his statements in court were reproduced in a sort of pidgin English indicating that he spoke with a very heavy accent. There was much [laughter] inserted in the accounts indicating that he was ridiculed and he was certainly mocked on account of his Russian Hair Oil . He complained that he had been slandered in the press. So I picture him as a Big Man, with a lot of hair and a full, flowing beard and a strong accent. Why had he come, was he a refugee? It is a sad story, he kept no accounts, was not a good business man, and if he had really loved his wife how sad that he had to be divorced from her. I discovered him when researching one of his daughters, but her story another time. Meanwhile I trust that we all pray for peace and the end of conflict, destruction and lies. I suggest that whenever you see a picture of the man above you get a pen and add some hair, afterall he has plenty of oil.
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AuthorThis is where you can share creativity with me. I believe that everyone has something creative within them, and it is a joy to find ways of being creative. Blogging is NEW to me, so here goes ..... Archives
January 2024
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