Leonard Benjamin Franklin

Sir Leonard Benjamin Franklin OBE (15 November 1862 – 11 December 1944) was an English barrister, banker and Liberal Party politician, of Jewish descent.

Franklin was born in London in 1862, the son of Ellis Abraham Franklin, a banker and his wife Adelaide who was a sister of Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling. In this way, Franklin was born into a Liberal family which also included Venetia Stanley, famous correspondent of H H Asquith and future Liberal Party leader, Herbert Samuel. In 1888 Franklin married Laura Agnes Ladenburg and they had one son and three daughters.

Franklin was educated at King's College School, London and the Athenée Royale school in Brussels.

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 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.

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