Isaac Wolfson
Sir Isaac Wolfson, 1st Baronet FRS[1] (/ˈwʊlfsən/; 17 September 1897 – 20 June 1991) was a Scottish businessman and philanthropist.
The company was in trouble when he joined but he turned it round and made it into a very strong business and the principal source of his wealth.
He was highly capable in mathematics but could not afford to train as an accountant so he became a salesman for his father, who made cheap tables and chairs for local people.
There were a number of reasons: financial inexperience, an ill-advised move from Manchester to London, a fire and the recession.
[2] Wolfson gradually acquired shares from the Rose brothers, using cash lent by his father-in-law and by Archibald Mitchelson, who was a friend.
From 1934 onwards Wolfson acquired companies with large hire purchase debts and property assets, some for G.U.S.
Acquired companies included Midland and Hackney, Drages, Alexander Sloan, Jays and Campbells, British and Colonial and Smart Brothers.
[2] Later he backed French–British financier, tycoon, and politician James Goldsmith with a £1 million loan which Wolfson charged a whopping 100 per cent interest on.
[5] He also underwrote the hire purchase agreements of washing machine entrepreneur John Bloom at Rolls Razor but withdrew financial support in 1964, leading to the company's voluntary liquidation.
[6] In 1954 Wolfson was part of Kemsley-Winnick Television, which won the initial ITV weekend contracts for the Midlands and the North of England.
However, shortly after the award of the contracts the consortium was shown not to have the financial backing required, causing it to collapse.
In 1962 he was appointed president of the United Synagogue, the first to be selected from descendants of the nineteenth century waves of immigrants.
He received a baronetcy in the Queen's 1962 New Year's Honours list,[9] becoming Baronet as Sir Isaac Wolfson of St. Marylebone on 19 February 1962.
Wolfson's wife, the former Edith Specterman, was a vice-president of the English Jewish Welfare Board.
