Description: Saul Isaac (1823-1903), MP for Nottingham 1874-80, shown standing in the foreground. Isaac grew up in Chatham, Kent, where his family had a furniture business. During the American Civil war he and his elder brother Major Samuel Isaac were partners in the firm of Campbell, Isaac and Company, which became the European agent and chief army contractor to the Confederate Government, and this involved running the Federal blockade. Saul Isaac visited Nottingham from about 1867 staying at Clifton Hall with his friend Sir Robert Clifton. Clifton was sinking a new colliery on his land but died in 1869 before it had begun operations (in 1871). Isaac took a lease of the colliery from Clifton's heir and it was soon in production. Isaac came to live at Tollerton Hall. He was popular with his work people, and as a large employer of labour became a person of consequence in Nottingham. In 1872 he accepted an invitation to stand as a conservative candidate, and at the election early in 1874 he won the seat. He was the first professing Jew to be elected in the Conservative cause. At the General Election of 1880 he was again nominated as Conservative candidate but his popularity had waned; he had disposed of the colliery some years before and was no longer residing in the area of his constituency. He was defeated. He stood in Clerkenwell in 1885 and again was defeated. After this he passed out of public life and his fortunes seemed to decline. When he died in 1903 at the age of 80 he was occupying a bed sitting room in South Hampstead and was almost penniless. Extracted from 'Saul Isaac, MP for Nottingham, 1874 - 1880' by Maurice Caplan.