The Hon. Edward Aaron, mla[1]
Henry’s second son, Edward Aaron (c.1822–77), was born at London in 1822. The period 1833–1842 was apparently spent at Port Macquarie and Sydney.
Edward and his nephew Henry Emanuel Cohen are the only two Cohens listed in Heaton’s Dictionary of Dates and Men of The Times, 1542–1879, published by George Robertson in 1879. Edward’s entry reads as follows:
“COHEN, Hon. Edward, was born in London, in 1822. He came out with his parents in 1833, and was in business with his father as a grocer in Sydney. In 1842 he went to Melbourne and joined Mr B. Francis as an auctioneer. In 1853 he returned to Sydney, but the climate not suiting his family, went back to Melbourne, and became a general merchant and then auctioneer until 1863. He was Mayor of Melbourne 1862–63. He was elected for East Melbourne in 1861, and was Commissioner of Customs in 1869-70, and again from 1972 to 1873. He died April 13, 1874 [sic].”
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On 1 September 1847 Edward married[2] Rebecca (1831–1902), eldest daughter of Moses Benjamin (1805-1885) and older sister of (later Sir) Benjamin Benjamin who, in 1857, married Edward’s niece, Fanny.
On Henry’s death, Edward’s share of the estate was a life interest in the income from “one house in Crown Street Sydney known as number 188 and one house at the back of the said premises in Woods Lane.” On the death of Edward and his wife, the legacy passed to their daughter Miriam.
Edward died,[3] aged 54 years, at East Melbourne on 13 April 1877. He was survived by his wife, two sons and four daughters, to whom he left an estate valued at £29,000.[4]
“This election of October 1864 saw the return of two other Jewish members. One was Edward Cohen, who had arrived in Melbourne in 1842 at the age of 20. He prospered also as an auctioneer, and from the Melbourne City Council, where he was Mayor in 1862–63, he entered the House, representing East Melbourne from 1864 to 1877. Cohen was a silent, solid, urban Conservative, a Minister for Trade and Customs in 1869–70 and 1872–74, and regarded as the leader of the Jewish community.”[5]
“Levi’s election paved the way for the entry of a number of Victorian Jews into parliament in the decades before Federation. The second Jew to take his seat was London-born Edward Cohen who arrived in Melbourne from New South Wales as a young man in 1842 and set up as an auctioneer and later as a tea merchant. He was the son of prosperous emancipist Henry Cohen of Port Macquarie. Elected to the city corporation in 1860, Cohen became mayor of Melbourne in 1862. He contested the seat of Melbourne in 1857 (thus being the first Jewish parliamentary candidate in Victoria) and West Melbourne the following year and was MLA for East Melbourne from 1861 to 1865 and again from 1868 until his death in 1877. In 1869 and from 1872 to 1874 he was commissioner for trade and customs. He was well known in Melbourne’s philanthropic and commercial life—like many Jewish citizens he was interested in hospital welfare, and was honorary treasurer of the Melbourne Hospital, and he was governor of the Colonial Bank of Victoria, as well as director of the Australasian Insurance Company. His funeral was said to be one of the largest ever seen in Melbourne.”
And footnoted: “Sutherland Victoria and its Metropolis, vol 2, p.468. Cohen was described as ‘the public Jew of Victoria, par excellence . . . [He] is the central figure around which our community revolves . . .’, Australian Israelite 29 December 1871. . . .”[6]
Edward and Rebecca had four? sons and four daughters:
[Nathan Edward] Birth
of a son to Edward A. Cohen at 512 George Street, Sydney, 22 June 1848.[7]
Nathan Edward died aged 19 years, in
1867.[8]
Elizabeth (1852–1926) was born[9] at Melbourne. Elizabeth married Alfred David Hart (____–____) [?ADB vol. ?, p.??], son of Samuel Hart (____–____) and _____ (née Benjamin).
Henry (1854–____) was born[10] at Melbourne. [Infantile death?]
Benjamin (Bennie) Stanhope (1857–1926[11]) was born at ______. Benjamin married Edith Elizabeth Lumley (____–____), daughter of Edward Lumley (____–____).
Kate (1859–____) was born[12] at Melbourne. Kate married John Jacobs (____–____).
Annie (Anne) (____–____) was born at ______. In 1881 Annie married[13] Montague Cohen (____–____) [ADB vol. 8, p.57], son of Simeon Cohen (____–____). They had one child, a son, Harold Edward Cohen (1881–____) [ADB vol. 8, p.53], born[14] at Melbourne _______ 1881.
Miriam (____–____) was born at ______. Miriam married Alexander Marks (1838–1919) (see biographical note below), son of Caspar Marks (____–____).
Arthur Isaac (1864–____) was born[15] at Melbourne. In 1887, at Sydney, Arthur married[16] his first cousin Violet Cohen (1867–____), the daughter of Edward’s late brother William.
Other references:
Biography in ADB, vol. 3, 1851–1890, pp.436–37.
Extensive bio: Falk, Barbara. No Other Home. Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1988.[17]
