Force of Nature

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Benjamin Disraeli, Hyman G. Rickover, Mordechai Vanunu, Clement Freud, Lewis Bernstein Namier, Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln, Joseph Wolff, Richard Wurmbrand, Gerald Nabarro, Alexander Schomberg, Meyer Löw Schomberg, Moses Shapira, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Francis Palgrave, Michael Solomon Alexander, Harry Frederick Oppenheimer, Samuel Hart, Alice Goodman, Isaac Hellmuth, Hugh Montefiore, Ralph Schomberg, Morris Ximenes, Giacobbe Cervetto. Excerpt: Alexander Schomberg Captain Sir Alexander Schomberg (1720, London 19 March 1804, Dublin) was an 18th century Royal Navy officer. Life His father, Meyer Löw Schomberg (1690 1761), was a German-Jewish doctor and settled in England c. 1720 and set up a flourishing practice in Fenchurch Street , London. Two of Alexander's brothers followed their father's profession - the eldest, Isaac, and Ralph or Raphael - , and two others (Moses and Solomon) went into the law, but Alexander instead opted for the navy. Like his brothers, however, he was brought up a Jew but attended St Paul's School , London, and renounced the Jewish faith by publicly receiving the sacrament according to the Anglican rites and thus being able to enter on public careers without impediment from the Test Act . Joining the Navy in 1743 as a midshipman under Captain Edward Pratten on HMS Suffolk (70 guns), he passed his examination for lieutenant on 3 December 1747, entering the sloop Hornet on 11 December and transferring from there to Speedwell , another sloop, in the West Indies in spring 1750. The latter ship, however, returned to England, and was paid off in July 1751, with Schomberg and her other officers placed on half pay. Schomberg's next appointment came in February 1755, under Captain Peter Denis on the Medway . This ship, however, was only in the home fleet...