CAPTAIN HAL RANDOLPH
Aviator and businessman
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Hal was named for his uncle Harry Randolph, and they remained close for many years. His branch of the family own Randolph North American Aviation and from a young age Hal was obsessed with flying, designing and building aircraft – famously completing a solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.
In 1938 he married Rose Jacobs, the widow of old J Jeremiah Jacobs. As the war started in Europe Hal was engaged in switching production at RNAA from commercial to military and the company now supplies munitions and parts for bombers to the UK. As soon as America joined the war, Hal enlisted in the USAAF, and although he has not generally been on active combat service, he has been on two bombing runs over Germany.
He currently splits his time between various American air bases and liaison duties in Whitehall.
ROSE JACOBS RANDOLPH
From nurse to wealthy wife
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Rose was originally employed as a nurse for the elderly J Jeremiah Jacobs in his declining years. Many of the shareholders will remember her accompanying him to previous Shareholder Meetings and the tender care she provided. Rose and JJ married in December 1936, in a private ceremony, much to the surprise of the family given the substantial age gap.
When he died the following year JJ left Rose his entire fortune, cutting closer family members out of his will. This was quite the scandal, but it was soon eclipsed by her marriage in 1938 to Hal Randolph, aviator, and another family shareholder.
As well as carrying out her duties as a wife and shareholder, Rose owns a jazz club in London, the Rose Garden, at which she also sometimes performs. The club is part of the spiritualist scene and hosts gatherings for the open-minded once a month – a touching tribute to old JJ's love of a good séance.
LADY CICLEY JACOBS-BLANDING
Patron of the Arts
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Cicely Jacobs (Aunty Lee or Sissy to her intimate friends) was rebellious in her youth. She ran off to Europe and scandalised the family by associating with artists in Paris, Vienna and Berlin. In her thirties she made peace by marrying Lord Edmund Blanding, a man some twenty years her senior, of noble title but little money. She made improvements to his country pile, bought an up-to-the-minute town house in Kensington and provided him with the requisite two male heirs.
After Edmund's death from Spanish Flu she continued to make improvements to the Jacobs-Blanding homes as well as jaunting around Europe with a series of younger men, before becoming involved with an archaeologist and vanishing in South America during the early thirties. After some concern from the family she returned to Europe, via Mexico and resumed her activities as a wealthy patron of the arts.
Immediately before the War broke out she was in Paris championing the fascist art of Futurism and had an infamous row with Frida Kahlo. Since the opening of hostilities she has publicly distanced herself from the Vorticists and Futurists – even opening Blandings Manor to some government department or other and, according to her, helping the war effort in some unspecified way (though it's possible Aunty Lee has just been enjoying the presence of fit young men in uniform around her home.
BERTRAM HORATIO CADWALLADER-JACOBS
Spiritual Explorer
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After graduating from Oxford, Bertram travelled the Empire – exploring the Indian subcontinent and the Himalayas where he wholeheartedly embraced the practices of various teachers, gurus and other spiritual leaders, even spending time as a monk in a Buddhist temple.
He is a common if somewhat irregular attendee at shareholder meetings and when not travelling can usually be found on his estate in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where he has continued to develop his spiritual practice to the bemused tolerance of his friends and family.
Shortly after the outbreak of war, he took a position within the War Office, advising on German interests in Tibet. His detailed explanations of the methods by which transcendental meditation will allow the foretelling of German air-raids are tolerated but not usually put into practice. His calls for the nation to adopt vegetarianism have been more successful, and have lead to a series of letters in the Times.​
SOLOMON 'SOLLY' WEINBERG
Businessman and Philanthropist
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Today in ‘Focus on Finance’, the Financial Times celebrates the incredible career of Solomon ‘Solly’ Weinberg. Regular readers wil be very familiar with the Weinberg fortunes, based firmly in the heart of the textile industry.
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What readers may not know is the humble origins of the Weinberg empire. Solly Weinberg came to England from war-torn Russia with his family just before the turn of the century, settling in the East End of London. The young Weinberg could not have been further from the privilege in which he lives today, and in fact started his first dress-making business in the back of his father’s watch shop in Brick Lane.
From here this ambitious young man built one of the biggest textiles companies in the world, let alone Great Britain, and within ten years was one of the Country’s top 100 wealthiest men.
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Early in his career Solly forged a firm friendship and sometime partnership with the renowned Jacobs family, and to this day is a close friend, and some might say mentor, to the younger Jacobs, being one of the elite few people to hold shares in Randolph- Jacobs Co Ltd, and indeed this has been a reciprocal benefit for the Jacobs’ for the last thirty years.
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A devout and unashamed follower of the Hebraic faith, Solly has been a patron of a number of Synagogues across the North and East London areas, and is well-known for his attendance and devotion at the Bethnal Green Great Synagogue to this day.
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A well-known philanthropist, Solly has turned a considerable portion of his business to providing uniforms and blankets for our brave boys overseas at no charge, and has donated sizeable sums of money to the well known ‘Kinder Transport’ or Jewish children’s refugee trains.
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A true Gentleman and as shrewd a businessman as one could wish to meet, Solomon Weinberg is a worthy Focus on Finance folio member.