Catalogue description PHOTOGRAPHS RELATED TO ESTHER ROSE AND FAMILY

Rose, Esther, fl 1983, of Didsbury, Manchester

• Rose, Henry, of Cardiff

Henry Rose was born in Cardiff, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who came to Britain from Odessa c.1895. His father, Wolfe Rose was a tailor. He started his career in journalism as a reporter on the South Wales Echo in Cardiff, and gravitated towards the reporting of sporting events, as well as some reporting about Jewish festivals and events. His next post was with the Western Morning News at Plymouth. In 1927 when the Daily Express opened in Manchester he was hired as Sports Editor, and he remained in this post until he was killed in the Munich Air Disaster of February, 1958, in which a large number of the members of the Manchester United team were killed.

He was a supporter of Manchester United, and a well known and highly coloured figure at football matches, in his familiar homburg hat. Spectators would wait for him to arrive, and if Manchester United were playing Liverpool or Everton, the supporters of the opposing team would shout "Go home Henry Rose", as if he had placed a jinx on their team.

Henry Rose was a major attraction for the Daily Express and was given considerable prominence, both within the paper itself and in its advertising. After 25 years of service on the paper he was given an enormous jaguar with the number plate HR1. A profile about him dated 24/10/1933 writes that:

"His snappy style and ability to get to the point pleased his Northern readers ... His sports talk of the North proved so popular as a bi-weekly business that in response to the constant demand of his very large public it has developed into a daily feature with unqualified success.

From Berwick to the Potteries the self-appointed scribes are ever busy writing to Henry to tell him all about it. His postbag has reached such alarming proportions that his greatest problem is what to do with the thousands of letters he receives...".

In his early thirties, Rose manages to mingle energy with experience and wit with wisdom.

He lives hard, enjoys good health, golf, dog-racing, poker, and any other game in which he can 'have a flutter'.

Henry Rose's reputation was such that he was featured in cartoons, and an envelope, simply addressed with a drawing of a cartoon character called Henry and a picture of a Rose, reached him at his office.

He was also a recognised speaker at Jewish events, and was a member of the South Manchester Synagogue, Wilbraham Road, where a children's playground was dedicated in his memory. In 1936 he attended the olympic games in Germany and was among those who refused to give a Nazi salute. During the Second World War he discovered he was on the Nazi black list and would have been killed had the German occupied England.

A display case has been dedicated in his memory at the Manchester Jewish Museum, and a copy of his autobiography, "Before I forget" (published 1942, by the Camelot Press Ltd., London), has been deposited there.