Alexander James Grossmann

1834 —
A brief biography

Ancestors


Alexander James Grossmann 1834 —
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Sophia Fletcher Ada 1833 —   Julia Sophia Grossmann 1858 —  

Alexander James Grossmann


Born in 1834, the fourth year of the reign of King William IV.  He has 14 direct descendants in the family.

An extraordinary childhood


The following was related to Tim Richardson by Charles Escoffery:

My grandfather, Grandpa Grossmann as we always called him, was originally Jewish. I don’t know anything about his father, Gabriel Grossmann, but I remember he told me his mother was Elizabeth Julia Bettelheim, of a well known family and related to the Esterhazys of Budapest, and that he had several brothers and sisters who had died when they were they were very young. His mother and father died when he was still a boy and he was brought up by his Aunt Regina Bettelheim, who owned and lived in a big forty-room palace in Budapest. According to my mother, who went to Budapest when she was 18, her Aunt Regina was so fat she could not walk and could balance a plate of food on the top of her bust. Grandpa’s name was originally Samuel (Nagy) and his Aunt Regina called him Schmully. He was about 15 in 1848 when he left Budapest and walked to Constantinople, where he and his cousins learned trades because General Kossuth was there and helped them do this. My grandfather learned to be a watchmaker and his cousins, the two Koritzchoners and Cohen, became jewellers.

The Cohen cousin settled in Amsterdam and became a diamond merchant. In later years I met Henry Koritzchoner in Paris, where he was the foremost pearl appraiser. I saw him take pearls, one in the palm of each hand, and tell just how much they weighed and what they were worth.

The other Koritzchoner brother settled in London where he was an appraiser of jewels and antiques. He married there and had several daughters. There were twins, Charlotte, tall and dark, and Marie, short and fair. They were accomplished pianists, but their father would never let them play in public. Another of his daughters married Mr. Rosenthal, Secretary to the Rothschild banker of Germany.

The journey to England

Alexander was on a boat bound for England which was wrecked near the Island of Malta. He was cared for by an Anglican clergyman who converted him to Christianity and gave him the name of Alexander James Grossmann. He got to England in 1851 and settled in Dover as a watchmaker, then went into photography and painting,


A Royal Photographer


Naturalized as a British Subject, he was christened at St Mary’s, Whitechapel, London in 1855 and joined the 95th Rifles renamed the Rifle Brigade in 1881. An early posting was to Dover where he met and married Sophia Ada at the Holy Trinity Church, in the Pier District. While in the army, Grossmann was patronised by Prince Arthur (1850 -1942), during his service with the Rifle Brigade, whom, it was said, encouraged Grossmann to become a professional photographer - it is claimed that he was the second photographer after Daguerre - and patronised him.
Prince Arthur was the third son of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) and later became the Duke of Connaught.

On discharge from the army, Grossmann opened his photographic studio at Snargate House, 16 Snargate Street and was to stay there until 1901. From 1899, for two years, he also had a studio at 20 Biggin Street.

The Pommerania Incident

In 1878, Grossmann received international appreciation as an interpreter when on 26 November the 3,382 ton Hamburg-American mail packet Pommerania, on a voyage from the US to Germany, was in collision with iron sailing ship Moel Eilion off the South Foreland. 172 passengers, mainly German, from the Pommerania were landed at Dover and taken to the Seamen’s Mission. There Grossmann took on the mantle of interpreter and carer, staying with the passengers until such time as passage was found for all of them to return to Hamburg.
It was probably thanks to this that Queen Victoria appointed him Official Interpreter to the Cinque Ports of England.


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