PIRBRIGHT, HENRY DE WORMS, BAR-ON:
English statesman; born in London 1840; died at Guildford, Surrey, Jan. 9, 1903; third son of Solomon Benedict de Worms, a baron of the Austrian empire. He was educated at King's College, London, and became a barrister in 1863. As Baron Henry de Worms he sat in the House of Commons as Conservative member for Greenwich from 1880 to 1885, and for the East Toxteth division of Liverpool from 1885 to 1895, when he was created a peer. He was parliamentary secretary to the Board of Trade in 1885 and 1886 and from 1886 to 1888, and under-secretary of state for the colonies from 1888 to 1892. In 1888 he was president of the International Conference on Sugar Bounties, and as plenipotentiary signed the abolition treaty for Great Britain. He became a member of the Privy Council in the same year. He was a royal commissioner of the Patriotic Fund, and one of the royal commissioners of the French Exhibition of 1900. His works include: "England's Policy in the East" (London, 1876), "Handbook to the Eastern Question" (5th ed., London, 1877), "The Austro-Hungarian Empire" (2d ed., London, 1877), "Memoirs of Count Beust" (ib. 1887).
In 1864 he married Fanny, daughter of Baron von Tedesco of Vienna, and in 1887, after her death, Sarah, daughter of Sir Benjamin Samuel Phillips.
Lord Pirbright was for several years president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, but resigned in 1886 owing to objections raised to his having attended the nuptials of his eldest daughter in a church. During his parliamentary career he was a warm advocate of the cause of Jews in lands of oppression, especially Rumania ("Jew. Chron." Jan. 16, 1903).
- Who's Who, 1903;
- Jewish Year Book, 1903.
