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THE MENDES DA COSTAS.
A l l students of the Earl of Beaconsfield’s Life know the story
of the legacy of
£
40,000 left him by Mrs. Brydges Willyams.
Mrs. Brydges Willyams was the daughter of Abraham Mendes da
Costa, son of Daniel Mendes da Costa of Jamaica.
Daniel Mendes da Costa
died about 1755
I
|
Abraham
Rachel Lousada
d. 1782
I
Sarah (Mrs. Brydges Willyams)
Abraham Mendes da Costa died during Sarah’s infancy, and
her mother, who was a gentile lady named Leigh was remarried
to a Mr. Ford, and Sarah seems to have been cut of from all
associations with the Jewish relatives of her father.
Through the Laras, Mrs. Brydges Willyams was remotely
connected with the Earl of Beaconsfleld himself.
No family in this record is of greater distinction than that
ofMendes da Costa. Together with their cousins, the Mendes’
and the Da Costas, they played an important part in the history
of the crypto-Jews of Portugal, and subsequently in the founda
tion of the Anglo-Jewish community. They were active on the
Royalist side during the Civil War, and, after the Restoration,
acquired a considerable importance. Alvaro da Costa, merchant
and banker, was one of the earliest Jewish land-owners in Eng
land. His seat at Totteridge was afterwards sold to the Mannings,
and it was in the house he had built that the Cardinal was born.
His brother-in-law and cousin, Fernando Mendes, M.D., was body