HENRIQUES

HENRIQUES (Quixano Henriques), Anglo-Jewish family. The family progenitor was MOSES HENRIQUES of Kingston, Jamaica, who married Abigail Quixano in 1768. The eldest son of this marriage, ABRAHAM QUIXANO HENRIQUES (18/19th cent.), immigrated to London, where he established himself as a West India merchant. His sons DAVID (1804–1870) and JACOB (1811–1898) were prominent communal workers and were among the founders of the Reform congregation in London in 1840.   Later members of the family include: HENRY STRAUS QUIXANO HENRIQUES K.C. (1864–1925), lawyer, communal worker, historian, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (1922–25), and author of the standard works The Jews and the English Law (1908) and Jewish Marriages and the English Law (1909). CYRIL QUIXANO HENRIQUES (1880–1976) was a civil engineer. He served in the Indian Civil Service before going to Palestine, where he was engineer for the Zionist Executive from 1925 to 1928. Returning to England he was active in Zionist affairs and a leader of the Nazi boycott movement of the 1930s. SIR BASIL LUCAS QUIXANO HENRIQUES (1890–1961) was a social worker, a leading authority on juvenile delinquency, and an advocate of progressive Judaism. Born in London, Basil Henriques was educated at Harrow and Oxford, where he helped to edit a prayer book for the synagogue services conducted by the undergraduates. An officer during World War I, he wrote sermons and prayers, later issued in booklet form, for Jewish troops. Henriques devoted his principal efforts to helping underprivileged and delinquent youth in the East End of London. In 1915 he founded his first boys club. After World War I, Henriques and his wife established the St. George's Jewish Settlement. A gift of £65,000 from bernhard baron enabled them to build more spacious premises, and they made their home there so that they could be close to the Settlement's members, who numbered in the thousands. As a magistrate and later chairman of the East London Juvenile Court, Basil Henriques' chief purpose was to understand the causes of juvenile delinquency and develop preventive social action. He visited boys' homes and prisons, suggested reforms, and took a great interest in the care of young Jewish offenders after their discharge. He made lecture tours throughout the world to spread his views on the prevention of juvenile delinquency and to advance the cause of progressive Judaism. After World War II he headed the anti-Zionist "Jewish Fellowship" which however dissolved on the establishment of the State of Israel. Basil Henriques was knighted in 1955 for his services as social worker and magistrate. He described his career in The Indiscretions of a Warden (1937) and The Indiscretions of a Magistrate (1950). He also wrote The Home Menders (1955). Sir Basil's wife LADY ROSA LOUISE HENRIQUES (1889–1972), a sister of Herbert Loewe, was a gifted artist and herself a noted social worker. She was chairwoman of the British ose , vice president of English ort , and chairwoman of the German section for Jewish Relief Abroad. ROBERT DAVID QUIXANO HENRIQUES (1905–1967) was an author and soldier, who devoted his most productive years to writing, farming, and Anglo-Jewish affairs. Robert Henriques joined the British regular army, retiring in 1933. His first important novel, No Arms, No Armour (1939), was awarded various prizes. He returned to the army on the outbreak of World War II and served in the artillery and the commandos before reaching the rank of colonel as a planning officer on the combined operation staff of Field Marshal Montgomery. His awards included the U.S. Silver Star. His novel Through the Valley (1950), published in the U.S. as Too Little Love, was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. A member of the London Reform Synagogue and originally a vigorous opponent of political Zionism, Henriques underwent a "conversion" to Zionism at the time of Israel's sinai campaign of 1956, which he recorded in his 100 Hours to Suez (1957). He subsequently built himself a cottage in kibbutz Kefar ha-Nasi and paid annual visits to Israel. In his later years, he was president of The Bridge in Britain, an organization established to promote friendship between Britain and Israel. Robert Henriques' autobiographical novel, The Commander (published in 1967), deals with his commando career in World War II. Henriques' biographic fragments appeared in 1969 in From a Biography of Myself. His other works include biographies of two Anglo-Jewish oil tycoons, Marcus Samuel, First Viscount Bearsted (1960) and Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, 1877–1952 (1966). Members of the Kingston, Jamaica, branch of the Henriques family, distinguished themselves in the development of Jamaica's industry and by their activity in civic affairs. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Times (Nov. 13, 1925), 14; ibid. (Dec. 4, 1961), 15; ibid. (Jan. 24, 1967); Montefiore, in: Jewish Monthly, 1 (Nov. 1947), 9–11; A.M. Hyamson, Sephardim of England (1951), 63, 280. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ODNB for Sir Basil Henriques; L. Loewe, Basil Henriques: A Portrait (1976); C. Bermant, The Cousinhood, 377–93, index; R. Miller, Divided Against Zion: Anti-Zionist Opposition to a Jewish State in Palestine, 1945–1948 (2000), index. (Zvi Hermon / Harold Harel Fisch)