BERNHARD BARON DEAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 732, 3 August 1929, Page 9

BERNHARD BARON DEAD

GREAT PHILANTHROPIST OF BRITAIN NEARLY £2,000,000 GIVEN AWAY (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) LONDON, Friday. The death is announced of Mr. Bernhard Baron, tobacco magnate and philanthropist, in his 78th year. His benefactions amounted to nearly £2,000,000. Bernhard Baron was a Russian Jew. At 16 years of age he went to the United States to avoid serving in the Russian Army. Inventing a cigarettemaking machine—he was working for 16s a week in a tobacco shop—he took it to England, where he sold it for £120,000, and bought for £150,000 the tobacco business of Carreras, Limited. In 1905 be became a naturalised British subject. He gave huge donations to charities of all kinds. A membei of the Labour Party, he was a personal friend of Ramsay MacDonald and his colleagues. Mr. Baron was a good employer. He distributed large sums of money among his employees, and in 1926 he bought and equipped a large house at ! Brighton as a convalescent home for ‘ them. He is said to have declared | that he wished to die poor, and that he had no use for money except to give it away. A British Official Wireless message says:—Mr. Baron is spoken of as one of the greatest philanthropists of the century. It is estimated tliat during his lifetime he devoted well over £750,000 to hospitals alone, and that, in all, charities benefited by his generosity to an extent of about £2,000,000. Mr. Baron was born at Brestlitovsk, in Russia, of Jewish parentage, and at the age of 16 emigrated to America, where he started work in a tobacco factory. Cigarettes were just coming ; into vogue, and he proceeded to make them by hand and sell them to uni- ! versity students. The demand grew, and Mr. Baron found himself unable to meet it; so he set to work to invent a machine whereby cigarettes could be made rapidly and efficiently. His business grew, and it was with this machine, out of which he made £120,000, that he came to England. He bought the tobacco business of Carreras for £150,000, and developed j it, which is one of the greatest romances of modern commerce. He be came a naturalised Englishman. Mr. Baron's kindness and consideration toward all his employees was remarkable, and he was regarded by them with real affection. He had strong sympathies with the Labour movement, and contributed a considerable sum to its funds.