Unusually for the time, the principal donor was a woman, Judith Levy, a daughter of Moses Hart, who subscribed £4,000 (equivalent to £640,000 in 2023).

[5] The Royal Dukes of Cambridge, Cumberland, and Sussex, sons of George III, visited the Great Synagogue of London in 1809.

[6] The synagogue was also visited around this period, during his schooldays, by the writer Leigh Hunt, who wrote 'I took pleasure in witnessing the semi-Catholic pomp of their service and in hearing their fine singing, not without something of a constant astonishment at their wearing their hats'.

His rendering of prayers attracted many gentile visitors to the synagogue; amongst them was the Methodist minister Thomas Olivers, who adapted Leoni's rendition of the prayer Yigdal to create the English hymn, The God of Abram Praise; its melody still bears the title Leoni in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

In 1819 an aquatint of the interior was drawn by Augustus Charles Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson, and originally published in the popular illustrated magazine of the period, Ackermann's Repository of Arts.