Adam Trimingham tells us all about the Sassoon family’s ties to Brighton

The Sassoons were one of the richest and most generous families ever to settle in Brighton and Hove.

They dominated the resort’s social life in the late Victoria and Edwardian eras and were particularly friendly with the Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII.

Edward liked his comforts and these were attended to assiduously when he came to stay with members of the family in King’s Gardens, Hove or Eastern Terrace, Brighton.

The King was warmly regarded by most people and hundreds attended a service in his memory at Hove when he died in 1910 only weeks after a visit, Arthur Sassoon lived at King’s Gardens and was reputed to have 40 servants in a grand house recently marked with a blue plaque to the King. He contributed towards the cost of the seafront memorial to the King now known as the Peace Statue.

His half-brother Reuben lived in Queen’s Gardens while another half-brother Sir Albert, head of the family for many years, lived at Eastern Terrace in Brighton. Reuben was a great socialite and of all the family was perhaps the closest to the King.

The eccentric Flora Sassoon once saw a perspiring policeman on traffic duty on a hot day in Hove. She bought a stock of melons and presented them to the police so that they could keep cool during the heatwave.

She also gave nine acres of land to the town in Hove which now forms part of St Ann’s Well Gardens and provided summer houses for the croquet lawns there.

The commentator Henry Labouchere described Brighton as “four miles long and one mile in depth with a Sassoon at each end and another in the middle.”

Brighton had been down in the dumps during the early years of the last century. The visits by the King helped restore its prestige.

The Sassoons were an Anglo Indian Jewish family who made their money as merchants. They have left a most curious legacy which can still be seen. In 1892 Sir Albert built a mausoleum behind his home in Eastern Terrace so that it looked like a small Royal Pavilion. Both he and his son Sir Edward were buried there.

It was sold to the Kemp Town Brewery in 1933 and the coffins were reburied in London. Eventually it was bought by the Hanbury Arms pub next door and became a popular venue called the Bombay Bar.

Another half-brother David Sassoon was chiefly known for his daughter Rachel Beer who became editor and proprietor of The Observer in the 1890s. She also bought the Sunday Times.

But she had a severe breakdown and was sent to an asylum. The papers were sold in 1904 and eventually became great rivals.

Her brother Alfred was the father of Siegfried, most famous of all the Sassoons. He was one of the few First World War poets to have survived the conflict and he lived until 1967. He is well remembered while the others, for all their fortune, are now largely forgotten.