Early Life
The youngest son of Fanny Bees and Barney Barnato, who had made a fortune as a "Randlord" in South African diamond and gold mining, he was a relative of the Joel family of entrepreneurs.
Born at Spencer House, 27 St James's Place, London, he had a sister Leah Primrose (died 1933) and brother Isaac "Jack" Henry (died 1918 of bronchial pneumonia). The family divided their time between London, Brighton, Colwyn Bay and South Africa.
In 1897 aged two, his father died near Madeira during a sea crossing from South Africa to London. The official verdict was suicide ('death by drowning while temporarily insane'). Woolf hence inherited his father's fortune at the time, but with the monies placed in trust, he only inherited his first instalment of £250,000, in 1914 aged 19. In addition, Woolf also benefited from a further inheritance after the murder of Woolf Barnato Joel in Johannesburg in 1898.
Barnato was educated at Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge.
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