Julien Cahn - Family Background

Family Background

Cahn's father was a Jewish immigrant from Germany who before World War I founded the Nottingham Furnishing Company, a huge business. Cahn, seeing a new potential market in hire purchase sales, expanded the company to the extent that his Jays and Campbells stores were to be found in most major towns across Britain. By 1943 when he retired and sold out to Great Universal Stores (nowadays known as GUS), he controlled a chain of between 300 and 400 stores.

By the 1920s Cahn was a very wealthy man who enjoyed his money, spending it lavishly and generously. He fell in love with cricket when as a child he often sat under Parr's tree at Trent Bridge, listening to Arthur Shrewsbury.

Later, in 1925 he joined the county committee at Nottinghamshire and his donations paid for much of the cost of a new scoreboard, new indoor nets and two new stands

In 1926 he finished building his new ground at West Bridgford in West Park on Loughborough Road. This included a luxurious pavilion which was used to house a collection of ancient bats and which if necessary could be converted into a badminton court.

Having lived at Papplewick near Nottingham, in 1928 he bought Stanford Hall in South Nottinghamshire, from Kathleen Kimball at a cost of £70,000. The house was an eighteenth century red-brick building put up on the site of an earlier house by Charles Vere Dashwood and subsequently enlarged by members of the Ratcliffe family, to include the extensive terraces with far ranging views to the south over the wolds and Charnwood Forest. Cahn commissioned another cricket pitch, a nine-hole golf course, a bowling green and enlarged the large trout lakes, complete with island. A tennis court and thatched pavilion, an enormous outdoor heated swimming pool with coral walls holding fountains and artificial caves added to the fantastic wooded parkland and formal gardens.

The house was extensively remodelled over the next decade under the direction of Sir Charles Allom, principal of arguably the finest of the large interior decorating concerns, White Allom Ltd. Together with Queen Mary, Sir Charles advised on the redecoration of Buckingham Palace and had many multi-millionaire clients, such as Henry Clay Frick, whose Fifth Avenue town house now houses the Frick Collection and whose decoration by White Allom is highly regarded. The same is true of Stanford Hall. At the same time, Allom was working on St Donat's Castle in Wales for press magnate William Randolph Hearst. Stanford Hall retains most of the superb interior structures and installations of Cahn's day, though most of the art moderne marble bathrooms were removed in the 1960s. The furnishings selected with Sir Charles were of the highest quality. The inclusion of many fine antiques, and the theming of the rooms by date and country gave the impression of a house that had evolved over time. By 1940 it was one of the finest and most luxurious of small country houses in the United Kingdom. Cahn died in the White Allom panelled library in 1944.

In 1931 Cahn purchased Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron's former home and donated it to the Nottingham Corporation at a ceremony attended by the local council and the Greek Prime Minister. Cahn was subsequently decorated by the Greek government.

In 1934 Cahn was created a baronet, of Stanford on Soar for services to agriculture and several charitable causes. There were many instances of his contributions to charity, not least society balls held in London and elsewhere in aid of various charities.

Cahn spent many years as President of The National Birthday Trust Fund, the charity that promoted the provision of maternity services. In this capacity he became very friendly with Lucy (Cissie) Baldwin, wife of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. In 1934 Cahn helped the government of the day pay off the notorious honours fixer, Maundy Gregory.

Apart from cricket, his other great loves were hunting and magic and illusions. Between 1926 and 1935 was the master of the Burton foxhounds (founded 1672). According to one account, his enormous wealth was seen as a godsend by the club. In his first year as master, he donated £500 towards replacing barbed wire with wooden fencing. He also gave prizemoney for the best-kept hedges. On hunt days, his party would arrive in a fleet of Rolls-Royces.

Cahn was also a celebrated illusionist, President of the Leicester Magic Circle and an influential member of the Magician's Club. In 1936, Sir Charles Allom's son-in-law J E Redding, a constant visitor, was put in charge of the project to create a theatre-cinema on the east side of the house. J.E. Redding and Smith, and the noted cinema architect Cecil Aubrey Masey designed this addition, in which Cahn could perform in front of his guests and friends. Stanford Hall. An air-raid shelter was also built under the theatre and the project was reported in the architectural press and locally in the Loughborough Echo as "one of the most remarkable in this country. Its lighting, furnishing, and general appointments are delightful in every respect. The fittings are modern in the extreme". Among its features are a decorated safety curtain and a series of murals painted by Beatrice MacDermott. A self-playing Wurlitzer theatre organ was bought from the Madeleine Theatre in Paris and contributed to Cahn's repertoire of magic. The theatre continues to be used to this day, for plays, operas, musicals and concerts by amateur and professional companies and was home to The Lincoln Rep for many years in the 1950s and 1960s together with the Festival Players. Cahn was a keen supporter of music and Vladimir Horowitz performed privately at Stanford Hall, as did Olga Lynn.

Having sold his business interests to Isaac Wolfson's Great Universal Stores in 1943, he had but one year to enjoy his house, which was surrounded by the full war-time occupation of an army transport unit. After Cahn's death at Stanford Hall, the house and part of the estate were subsequently bought by the Co-operative Union Limited to house the Co-operative College on its move from war-blitzed Manchester. The college was based there from 1944 to 2001. Until the late 1990s it was home to thousands of students from around the globe, all given varied courses in the principles of the co-operative movement, based on the principles of self-help, which Cahn would have recognised. With the widening of access to higher education, the appeal of adult education of the kind provided by the college diminished, and there was less demend for the kind of education it offered. In 2001, Stanford Hall was sold to the property developer Raynsway and more recently was sold to Chek Whyte Industries, who intend to restore the Hall to its former glory.

Cahn married Phyllis Muriel Wolfe on July 11, 1916. They had three children, Patience Cahn (born 1922), Albert Jonas (1924) and Richard Ian (1927). Albert Jonas assumed the baronetcy on his father's death.

His granddaughter Miranda Rijks has written 'The Eccentric Entrepreneur', the first official biography of Sir Julien Cahn published by The History Press in 2008.