Leonard Benjamin Franklin - Career

Career

Franklin studied for the law and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1894, although he never practised. In 1892 he had become a partner in the firm of A Keyser & Co. of Throgmorton Street in the City of London, foreign bankers and was a senior partner after 1929 During the First World War, he was appointed as Local Government Board representative at Folkestone with the task of dealing with the large numbers of refugees from ‘gallant little Belgium’ when the voluntary War Refugee Committee could no longer cope with the weight of numbers. For this work he was awarded the OBE. He was later posted to France to report on the finances of British military hospitals. Franklin also served as a Justice of the Peace.