Barney Barnato's marriages- a mystery-plus montague richard leverson

[borewood]

Hello -Iam related to Esther Rantzen and her equally celebrity colourful ancesters-Montague Leverson and Barney Barnato-much interesting chat on all 3. My family tree  on my heritage is full of accurate but there are gaps for expansion and clarification. On Leverson there could be dutch sephardi origin to go with my northern ashkenazi roots. This will be sorted-have some clues from rootsweb chat people. My big problem is with Barnato-to whom and when was he officially married-some kimberley south africa references to a Fanny Bees or Petrus and a secret wedding-some references to another uk marriage to an Annie Butt-1892 at Strand london registry office-after a divorce possibly-woolf racing diver son born in 1895 7n a grand mayfair mansion. Any  help please here. Anthony Scott-Norman from Hertfordshire UK

[MaureeninNY]

It looks to me as though he married Fanny BEES in 1892 Strand.

Looking at FreeBMD only brings up one possible spouse (Annie BUTTS) but I think the page number for Fanny has been mistranscribed as 1114.

She seems to die in 1943 as Fannie Christina Barnato.


Maureen

[borewood]

Thanks-Maureen-you are a star

Anthony

[JaneyCanuck]

Have you looked in the SA National Archives for info?

I got 192 results on a simple search for Barnato, pretty much all of which are related one way or another.

btw, it helps if you give complete info -- his name wasn't actually Barney Barnato.

Looking at one at random:

1898, motion, James Douglas Logan versus Woolf Joel, executor of estate of late Barnett Isaacs Barnato.

which seems to be a continuation of:

1897, motion, James Douglas Logan versus Barnett Isaacs Barnato.

Woolf Joel's brother was Jack Barnato Joel, a horse man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Barnato_Joel
so there's some family connection there, but the surname would be Joel rather than Woolf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_family

Ah, the wiki page links to an article about Jack Barnato Joel being Barney Barnato's nephew:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70C16FF395A17738DDDA00994DF405B888CF1D3
Indeed, very colourful! (the full article is linked to there)
It may be old news to you, but it may help sort out relationships. Woolf Joel was murdered in SA.




There is all kinds of stuff in SA archives. Another is a list of items held by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies relating to Barney Barnato, dated 1970. And photographs, memoirs, films ...

If you aren't familiar with the SA archives, start here:
http://www.national.archives.gov.za/
Select
National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS)
then select
All Archives Repositories and National Registers of non-public records

and just search and browse. To see the actual records, you have to request copies from the particular archive repositories in question, which have varying policies in that regard. (I had one ask curtly why my email had not provided a postal address so they could mail me copies free of charge, and another, which held the same document, say I would have to hire a local researcher to get a copy.)

To get the names of BB's children, just do a general search at FreeBMD for the surname:
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl

If you get a copy of the marriage certificate (how exceptionally sloppy for someone to have claimed he married the wrong woman in 1892!) it should say whether he had been divorced.

Ah. He was born Barnett Isaacs in 1851:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Barnato
so I might suspect if there was a previous marriage, it was under that name. In fact, his 1892 marriage was also registered under that name. There are four Barnett Isaacs marriages in London 1876-1889, but given that he went to SA in 1873, none is likely him, unless he travelled back and forth.


edit - hang on - the wiki article says "He was married to Leah (daughter of Solomon) Harris."
But apparently not in England. (For the 1889 marriage in London, one of the possible brides is Hannah Harris.)

edit edit - and that seems seriously muddled. This looks like the actual situation:
http://www.geni.com/people/Leah-Isaacs/6000000003071284013
Leah Harris, born 1816, daughter of Solomon, married Isaac Isaacs and was the *mother* of Barnett Isaacs / Barney Barnato.

The Isaacs family is in Spitalfields in 1861, father Isaac widowed.

[OrganicJohn]

In her autobiography ( "The Wind Beneath My Wings" ?) Diana Barnato Walker gives quite a lot of details of her ancestry.I would not know how accurate the imformaton in it is.She died fairly recently shortly before a TV programme about the section of the RAF for women pilots which she served in during the War was made.

[borewood]

Thanks for recent informative message on barnatos-am pretty clear on uk/us/south Africa angles but am investigating a dutch link on origins/spelling of name of the related leversons.

Yes Diana BW's book is brilliant-am very proud of her achievements

Anthony

[antiqphoto]

Hello -Iam related to Esther Rantzen and her equally celebrity colourful ancesters-Montague Leverson and Barney Barnato-much interesting chat on all 3. My family tree  on my heritage is full of accurate but there are gaps for expansion and clarification. On Leverson there could be dutch sephardi origin to go with my northern ashkenazi roots. This will be sorted-have some clues from rootsweb chat people. My big problem is with Barnato-to whom and when was he officially married-some kimberley south africa references to a Fanny Bees or Petrus and a secret wedding-some references to another uk marriage to an Annie Butt-1892 at Strand london registry office-after a divorce possibly-woolf racing diver son born in 1895 7n a grand mayfair mansion. Any  help please here. Anthony Scott-Norman from Hertfordshire UK

Hello Anthony,

Barney Barnato was married to Fanny Bees twice, once in Johannesburg, South Africa and again in London at the Chelsea Registry office on November 19th 1892. The date of the first marriage is not known, but I have narrowed it down to 1890 or 1891. I have a photograph of Barney and Fanny's wedding taken in Johannesburg by Davies Brothers photographers. This photograph has been handed down in my family from my grandfather. We are distantly related to Barney Barnato.
I am not sure how to insert this image here so you can view it on picasaweb:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104287332002049360568/BarneyBarnatoAndFannyBeesWeddingPhotograph?authkey=Gv1sRgCI2YlrSagaaUwQE#5933203957758417010

Fanny was Barney's only wife. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation in various books and it has been quite difficult to sort out the fact from the fiction. I am currently writing a book about Barney Barnato and I have done considerable amount of research. I am also in contact with a few of the descendants of the Barnato and Harris families.

Regarding the Leverson family, there is a Monatague Richard Leverson and his son Louis Pianciani Leverson, whose daughter Kathryn Flora married into the Rantzen family on my family tree. We may be distantly related.

Regards from California,

Anthony Davis

[borewood]

Hello Anthony-thank you very much - I would like to follow up possible connections with you-my site over time is pretty comprehensive on the barnato relatives and Laurence Harris -a distant barnato relative has been helpful here too-he is also on my heritage- a big noise on this and jgs.

Ever since Esther Rantzen tv prog I have enjoyed the barnato histories and will be visiting grave stones soon in Willesden.

Please contact me again on (*) can I put your photo on my tree-don't know how to download to my system.

Regards Anthony- ps do you have a tree and or relationship to Barnato exact details?

(*)Moderator comment:email address removed in accordance with Rootschat policies. Please use the personal message system to exchange this information.

[carol8353]

There's a National Probate entry.

Barnett Isaacs otherwise Barnett Isaacs Barnato,of Johannesburg South Africa and of 10 and 11 Austin Friar's London,financier died on 14th June 1897 at sea.Probate London 4th oct to Woolf Joel financier.

Effects  £ 963865 8s 6d

Carol