Maurice Jacobs : Teacher and French Honorary Consul

The 20th century had dawned just a few short years ago. Their son was a young teenager, so M. and Mme Léon, in Bordeaux, decided that it was high time for their lad, Léon, to perfect his English. The family was very internationally minded. They knew that Brighton already had an excellent reputation for good schools.  Its climate was healthy and its Jewish community was thriving.

prof-de-francais-1907

© Gallica : Bulletin de la Société de la Propagation des langues étrangères en France 1906

“Ah”, said M. Léon, “there is a school in Hove that would do very well.”  So he sent off a letter of enquiry to 14 Lansdowne Place in Hove.  Alas, it came to M. Léon’s ears that this school, run by a Frenchman and his English wife, was very, very small and that it had changed address several times over the previous few years. This did not bode well.  The Léons looked elsewhere.  Then they remembered that a few years previously, they had seen an advert in the “Jewish Chronicle” for a school in Brighton.  This looked more like what they wanted:

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