Ritual: Orthodox
Status: active
The congregation formed in 1905. It built its present building in 1911. Albert Samuel, brother of Herbert Samuel laid the cornerstone.
At the turn of the Twentieth Century there were already Jewish families living in Bournemouth and, in 1905, a Hebrew Congregation was established. There followed six years of meeting for weekly Services in temporary accommodation before in 1911 a Synagogue was built, in Wootton Gardens, a cul-de-sac off the main Christchurch Road. The Congregation consisted of fewer than 50 families.
The foundation stone of the first Synagogue building was laid by Albert Samuel, whose brother Herbert later became a Cabinet Minister and subsequently the British High Commissioner for Palestine under the Mandate. The Synagogue is of barrel-vault design, with the Ladies Gallery separated in the Ashkenazi tradition.
To accommodate up to 900 worshippers became a prime need fifty years later, when the Synagogue, under the guiding control of Henry Solomon, then Senior Trustee and many times President, was completely rebuilt. At the same time the social hall that had been erected in 1923 was improved and named to honour Gertrude Preston, a former Chairman of the Ladies GuiId. An additional classroom was also constructed.
The ornamental keys provided to open the Synagogue in 1911 and the vastly improved premises, reopened in 1964, are both mounted and fixed in prominent positions in the main foyer.
Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation