EMMA CLAYTON reports on the tours of Bradford that tell the story of the European settlers behind much of the city’s commercial success

Like many of the striking Victorian buildings in Little Germany, the Behrens property on East Parade is now an apartment block making “des res” use of its original stone and ironwork.

Little Germany started as a cluster of wool warehouses and offices during the glory years of textile manufacturing. And as its name – and the names of its streets and buildings – suggests, this corner of Bradford has a significant link to Bradford’s Jewish heritage.

Bradford’s development as a world-class industrial city, a Victorian success story, owes much to the Jewish textile merchants settling here in the 19th century.

One of the founders of industrial Bradford was Jacob Unna, manager of SL Behrens and Co on East Parade. Born in Hamburg, he laid the foundations of Bradford’s first synagogue and was a founder of Bradford Chamber of Commerce.

More than a century later, his great-grandson asked Nigel Grizzard to to translate papers found in Jacob’s Manningham home. “They shed light on Victorian Bradford,” says Nigel. “Not all the Germans who came to Bradford were Jews, and not all the Jews were German, but they found a home in Bradford, as other migrants have done over the years.”

Nigel explores Bradford’s Jewish heritage in tours tracing the city’s “hidden history”. Now he is seeking new guides to lead tours. “They don’t need to be Jewish, the key thing is a love of Bradford’s heritage,” says Nigel. “With more tour guides, we could hold monthly tours.”

The tours are organised by Making Their Mark, which raises awareness of Bradford’s Jewish history and has received £49,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

“Tours can be tailored to suit requirements, there’s no set route,” says Nigel. “We can focus on Little Germany or the Synagogue, for example. Someone may want to know about their grandfather’s grave, so we’ll go to the Jewish plots in Scholemoor Cemetery.

“People on the tours are often descendants of Bradford’s Jewish community, they have a link here. We learn from each other. On the last tour someone told me about an old kosher butcher on Manningham Lane.”

Nigel’s tours bring to life Bradford’s Victorian past, and he hopes new guides will be inspired to find out more. “The idea is that by learning about the Jewish heritage they will learn more about Bradford’s heritage,” he says.

Walking around Little Germany, he points out places such as Merchants’ House, run by Victor Edlstein and Jacob Moser, a health and welfare pioneer and Lord Mayor of Bradford in 1910.

Originally from Denmark, he founded the Bradford Charity Organisation Society, the City Guild of Help and the Technical School, and served on the board of the Infirmary. He provided a £10,000 benevolent fund for the city’s aged and infirm, supported the Children’s Hospital, set up a workers’ pension fund and donated 12,000 books to Bradford Central Library.

There are streets in Bradford named after Moser and Charles Sermon, Bradford’s first foreign-born Lord Mayor, in 1864.

The European merchants who founded Bradford Chamber of Commerce made up a quarter of its members between 1851 and 1881. Their names can be found on walls of the Chamber’s building in Little Germany.

Jews migrating to Bradford in the 19th century were from wealthy business backgrounds, attracted to the city’s prosperous textile trade. “They were sent to learn about the wool trade,” says Nigel, whose work in urban regeneration brings him into contact with Jewish documents from old mills.

“As well as big enterprises like Drummonds Mill and Salts Mill, owned by a Jewish family after Titus, there were smaller Jewish businesses; shops, tailors, jewellers, photographers. There was the Schillerverein club in Rawson Square and Arensbergs jewellers on Ivegate – the name can still be seen in the entrance hall and glasswork.”

Another significant place on Bradford’s Jewish map is the Carlton Hotel in Manningham, home to 24 boys who escaped the Nazis on the Kindertransport during the Second World War.

One of them was Albert Waxman, now 88, who organised a reunion in 1989, 50 years after the hostel opened.

Bradford’s biggest Jewish population influx came after the war, when refugees settled in Manningham, Shipley and Heaton. Today there are 200 Jewish people here and one synagogue remains; Yorkshire’s oldest synagogue in Bowland Street, Manningham.

Shipley synagogue closed last November and a deconsecration ceremony will take place in April.

“The Jewish population is dwindling now, as younger people have moved on. It remains a close-knit community though,” says Nigel.

Training for heritage tour guides lasts four to six weeks. For more information, call 07798 855494, e-mail info@bradfordjewish.org.uk, or visit bradfordjewish.org.uk.