Jack Freeman

Ayr furniture merchant, son of Harris and Rachel Freeman

For the Jewish National Fund organising secretary in Scotland, 1946–1949, see Jack Freeman (JNF organiser).

Jack Freeman was a furniture merchant of Ayr, a son of Harris Freeman and Rachel Freeman (née Livingston). He married Freeda Marks in Glasgow in 1935; they were divorced in 1943. In July 1949 he was living at 23 Arrol Drive, Ayr, and was named among the mourners of his father. He later had a wife named Irene, and probably died about June 1975. He is not the Jack Freeman who was organising secretary of the Jewish National Fund in Scotland from about 1946 until 1949: that man's wife was Edna Freeman (née Goldinger), and in 1948 he was a secretary living at 30 Ruthven Avenue, Giffnock.

Marriage to Freeda Marks

On 14 August 1935 Jack Freeman married Freeda Marks at Marlborough House, Glasgow, after banns according to the forms of the Jews. The minister was Isadore Goodman of Queen's Park Synagogue. Jack was 33, which places his birth between about August 1901 and August 1902; he was a bachelor and a furniture merchant, living at 49 Bellevue Crescent, Ayr. His father was Harris Freeman, furniture merchant, and his mother Rachel Freeman, maiden surname Livingston; neither is recorded as deceased. Freeda, 25, a spinster of 39 Garturk Street, Glasgow, was the daughter of Hyman Marks, jeweller, and Ettie Marks (née Bell). The witnesses were a David of 5 Myrtle Park, Glasgow, whose surname is hard to read, and Joseph Mellick of 124 Nithsdale Road, Glasgow. The couple placed a notice of thanks as “Mr. and Mrs. Jack Freeman (Freeda Marlks)” the following week.

On 13 August 1943 Lord Russell, sitting as Lord Ordinary in the Court of Session, granted a decree of divorce in an action at the instance of Jack Freeman, furniture merchant, of 49 Bellevue Crescent, Ayr, against Freeda Marks or Freeman, then residing care of Salinsky, 18 Sandmoor Drive, Allwoodley, Leeds. The note was inserted in the Register of Corrected Entries at Glasgow on 16 August 1943. It does not amend the original marriage details. “Marks or Freeman” is the usual Scottish legal style for her maiden and married names. The correction writes Jack's address more clearly than the marriage register, confirming 49 Bellevue Crescent, Ayr.

No Scottish or English index entry has been identified for a Freeda Freeman or Freeda Marks after 1943. A Freda Freeman who died in Dalkeith in 2004, aged 79, mother's maiden name Hamer, would have been too young to be the 1935 bride. A Freda Rachel Marks who died in Eastwood and Mearns in 1996, aged 90, mother's maiden name Price, cannot be her: Freeda's mother was Ettie Bell. No Scottish Freeman birth is indexed with the mother's maiden name Marks.

Later marriage and death

A death notice in the Jewish Chronicle of 10 January 1975 for Dr Samuel Osborne of Newcastle, who had died on 27 December 1974, was inserted by “his sorrowing brothers-in-law and their families: Steve and Lucille, Jack and Irene, Louis and Freda, Cecil and Estelle (Freeman).” It is probable that this Jack's later wife was named Irene. The grouping with Louis Freeman (whose wife is there named Freda) and Cecil Freeman and Cecil's wife Estelle is consistent with the Ayr family already named at Harris's death in 1949, when Dr and Mrs S. Osborne of Newcastle appeared among the mourners as the daughter's household. The sister's given name is not stated in either notice and is not invented here.

A further notice in the Jewish Chronicle of 20 June 1975 reads: “FREEMAN.—Jack. Our good friend has passed into eternal rest. Deepest sympathy with dear Irene and the Freeman family.—Mick and Tilly Lawrence.” It is probable that this is the same Ayr Jack, the husband of Irene named in the Osborne notice five months earlier, and that he died about June 1975. No death of a Jack Freeman is indexed in Scotland.

No marriage of Jack to Irene has been identified. ScotlandsPeople searches of the statutory marriage register for 1943–1975, for a groom named Freeman with the forename Jack, John or Jacob, returned no Irene as spouse except the 1962 Newton Mearns marriage of John Freeman and Irene Ruth Cohen, which is not identified with this Jack. FreeBMD indexes of England and Wales marriages for 1943–1975 list 58 Jack Freeman entries, none of them on the same page as an Irene. No wedding notice was found in the Jewish Chronicle archive for 1943–1960. A marriage abroad cannot be excluded. No marriage of a Jack Freeman without a distinguishing middle name is indexed in Scotland after August 1943. The only later Scottish Jack Freeman marriages returned are those of Jack Wishart Freeman in Pollok in 1949 and Jack Lewis Freeman at Gretna in 2023, neither of them identified with this man.

Family

Harris Freeman was honorary life president of the Ayr Hebrew Congregation. He died on Wednesday 13 July 1949 (Tammuz 16, 5709). A death notice in the Jewish Echo of 22 July, inserted from 2B Arrol Drive, Ayr, described him as the “beloved husband of Rachael Freeman” (the marriage register spells her name Rachel) and as “deeply mourned by his sorrowing wife, sons, daughter, son-in-law, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.” The congregation extended condolence to their honorary life president. The mourners named were:

• Mr and Mrs Albert Freeman and daughter, 12 Montgomery Terrace, Ayr
• Mr and Mrs Aaron Freeman, 60 Gramercy Park, New York, U.S.A.
• Mr Jack Freeman, 23 Arrol Drive, Ayr
• Mr and Mrs Louis Freeman and son, 12 Bellevue Crescent, Ayr
• Mr and Mrs Cecil Freeman, son and daughter, 15 Robsland Avenue, Ayr
• Dr and Mrs S. Osborne and daughters, 94 Coast Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne

Jack appears in that list without a wife, which is consistent with the 1943 divorce. The notice names one daughter, Mrs S. Osborne; her given name is not stated. A Harris Freeman death is indexed in Ayr in 1949, aged 81, which matches both the notice and an age of 26 at his marriage in January 1894.

Harris Freeman and Rachel Livingston were married on 3 January 1894 at the Synagogue, Glasgow, after banns according to the forms of the Jews; the marriage was registered on 6 January 1894 in the District of Kelvin, Burgh of Glasgow. Harris was 26, a bachelor and drapery traveller, of 16 Major Street, Gorbals, Glasgow, and signed Harris Freeman. His father appears as Joseph Freeman, furniture (the rest of the occupation is not securely read), and his mother as Ettie Freeman; her maiden surname is not securely read. Rachel appears to have been 22 (possibly 20), a spinster of 16 Ninian Street, Gorbals, and signed Rachel Livingston. Her father was Eli Livingston, a horse dealer, already deceased, and her mother Ester Livingston (née Goodman). The officiant signed E. P. Phillips; the witnesses appear to have signed Abraham Jacobson and Aby Rosenthal. Further inconclusive searches for Rachel's birth and death, and for Eli's death, are set out on Freeman family (Glasgow). The 1894 register is not the parentage of the Livingston family who were Levinsons by origin, nor of Lewis Isaac Livingstone and Sarah Links, who married in 1908. No source places her in either Zionist family.

The 1949 notice therefore names five sons — Albert, Aaron, Jack, Louis and Cecil — and one daughter, Mrs S. Osborne. The Louis of 12 Bellevue Crescent is probably the Louis Freeman registered in Ayr in 1903, who died in Eastwood and Mearns in 1988, aged 85, mother's maiden name Livingstone. He is not the Louis Freeman of 47 Camphill Avenue, Langside, husband of Clarice Teitelbaum and grandfather of Ben M Freeman (see Freeman family (Glasgow)). Any kinship between Max's and Harris's families is unproven, and this Jack is not Ben M Freeman's great-uncle by this line. His brother Cecil Freeman, an accountant, married Estelle Rosenheim on 18 October 1939 at the Synagogue, Garnethill, Glasgow, and was later an officer of the Ayr Hebrew Congregation. Cecil was then 31, of 49 Bellevue Crescent, Ayr, the address Jack had given in 1935, and his parents were the same Harris and Rachel.

An Aaron Freeman was registered in Ayr in 1897 with the mother's maiden name Livingston or Livingstone, and may be the Aaron of New York named in 1949; a second Aaron, registered in the Gorbals in 1897 with the same maternal surname, may be unrelated. Other Ayr births under that maternal surname — Jacob Freeman (1900), David Freeman (1902), Israel Freeman (1905) and Hetty Freeman (1908) — remain possible identifications only and are not matched here to the 1949 mourners. David, born in 1902, is the closest match to Jack's age, but is registered as David. Jacob, born in 1900, would have been about 35 rather than 33 in 1935. No Cecil or Albert or Jack Freeman birth is among those entries.

The 1975 Osborne notice also names Steve and Lucille among the brothers-in-law. Steve does not appear in the 1949 mourner list, and he has not been identified with Albert or with any of the Ayr birth-index entries. That name is left unexplained; Steve is not assumed to be Albert.

Namesakes

A Jack Freeman was organising secretary of the Jewish National Fund in Scotland from about 1946 until 1949, when he left to settle in 'Israel'. His wife was Edna Freeman (née Goldinger), and in 1948 he was a secretary living at 30 Ruthven Avenue, Giffnock, so he is a different man from this Jack, who married Freeda Marks in 1935 and later had a wife named Irene. Joseph Mellick was a witness at this Jack's 1935 wedding and a fellow Glasgow delegate of the organiser in 1947, a link which earlier suggested that they were the same man, but does not outweigh the evidence of the wife and address. The 1949 notices point the same way: the Jewish Chronicle reported that the organiser's parents, and a brother and sister-in-law, had recently left Glasgow for 'Israel', and in May “Mr and Mrs Jack Freeman” were at home in Giffnock prior to their departure, whereas Harris Freeman died in Ayr in July 1949 and this Jack was then named as a mourner at 23 Arrol Drive, Ayr. The organiser's career, including the loss of his triplet daughters in 1948, is set out on his own page.

Other records of the name are not assumed to be this man: an Edinburgh Jack Freeman, son of Mr and Mrs G. Freeman (the initial is not a secure reading) of 6 Rankeillor Street, who was engaged to Anita Nieberg in 1948; the marriage of Jack Hyman Freeman in 1928; the 1941 Pollok marriage of a Jack Freeman and Edna Goldinger, which is the organiser's marriage and took place while this Jack was still married to Freeda; Jack Wishart Freeman in 1949; a Jack Freeman born in Govan in 1930; and later items from Ayr, Newcastle and Manchester.

See also

• Freeman family (Glasgow)
• Jack Freeman (JNF organiser)
• Ayr Hebrew Congregation