Born Meshe David Osinsky and a Lithuanian Jew in Kurkliai, Kaunas province, he came alone to the UK in 1900 to escape the Russian pogroms.

He started as a peddler, then set up as a general outfitter in Chesterfield in 1903 selling readymade suits bought from a wholesaler.

His firm made a quarter of the British military uniforms during World War II and a third of demobilisation clothing.

Burton declined the offer to be Lord Mayor of Leeds in 1930 but was knighted in 1931 for "services to industrial relations" and was a Justice of the Peace from 1924.

[2] In 1909, he married Sophia Amelia Marks: they had one daughter, Barbara (1910), and three sons, Stanley (1914) and twins Raymond and Arnold (1917).