Lewis David d’Avigdor Salmon OBE

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Lewis David d’Avigdor Salmon OBE,  born 12 October 1966, is a retired City merchant and active philanthropist, residing at Charltons, Woolfont Crucis, Wilts. He is the nephew and heir of the late Royal Academician Sir Bennett Salmon, and is married to Melanie,  née  Cohen-Samuels.

Early life
Lew Salmon’s father was Lewis Nathan Salmon CBE (1923 – 1990), the younger brother of:

Sir Samuel Salmon Bt (1st Baronet Salmon of Kennington) (1913 – 1982), Steward and Under Warden of the Worshipful Company of Founders, Common Councilman and Beadle for Vintry Ward, Lloyds ‘Name’, and Member Representative of the Baltic Exchange,

and of:

Sir Bennett Salmon KBE RA, the Royal Academician and painter.

Lewis Nathan Salmon, like his father Godfrey Salmon, was a solicitor, and equally distinguished, serving as a Law Society Council Member for the City of London and a Parliamentary Agent.

Lew Salmon’s mother, Esther (née  Montague-d’Avigdor), who lived from 1932 to 1999, was a notable engaged in charitable endeavours, and in 1989 became Dame Esther Salmon, being created DBE in that year’s Birthday Honours for services to charity.

The young Lew Salmon, the second son and youngest child of Lewis Nathan and Esther Salmon, was educated at Rokeby and the City of London School, where, although hopeless at football and at cricket, he was distinguished upon the Fives court.

Career
Lew Salmon took his First Class degree (BSc (Hons)) in Economics at UCL, and began training at the private banking house of Somers, Swire & Son Ltd, London & Hamilton Bermuda. At Somers, he found himself increasingly responsible for bullion and metals futures transactions; within six years, he was head-hunted away, with Somers’ best wishes, by LBMA. He transferred thence to the still newish and go-ahead London Platinum and Palladium Market (enduring with wry smiles all the inevitable ‘Sir Brucey’, ‘Saturday Night at the London Palladium’ jokes).

In August of 1999, with this experience on his CV, he was chosen to become senior partner and managing partner of MSL Metals HG Ltd, a private trading house in base and precious metals alike, the ownership of which was in his cousins on the late Sir Samuel’s side, the Montague-d’Avigdors, the Chilterns, and other near relations. The ‘HG’ in the firm’s name referenced its old connexion with Hatton Garden.

Under his management, and with the backing of Somers and of interests controlled by the Taunton Estates, MSL Metals HG prospered, as a Full Member of the London Bullion Market Association, an Associate Member of the LPPM, and, especially, as a Ring Dealing and Clearing Member of LME. The metals traded on the London Metal Exchange were not ‘precious’ metals as such, but they made a very great deal of profit all the same; and his and his firm’s long association with the Baltic Exchange, the ‘dry’ cargoes of which include iron ore and steel, dates to this time. When, in 2012, the member-owners of LME sold the exchange for £1.4 billion, Lew Salmon happily retired, leaving the management of MSL Metals HG to his cousin Waldo Montague-d’Avigdor.

Lew Salmon served as Common Councilman of the City, for Vintry Ward, and a Member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee; and remains a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and a Freeman of the City of London, having been an Assistant and a Warden in his time.

His City days also left him on quite close terms with his uncle’s, and his own future, neighbour, Sir Thomas Douty Bt, who served as Alderman of the City of London for the Ward of Farringdon Without.

Philanthropy
Lew Salmon continues actively to support the City, and his successors on the Court of Aldermen and Common Council for Vintry Ward; the Goldsmiths; the LBMA, LME, LPPM, and the Baltic Exchange; and the schools and charities associated with the Corporation, the Worshipful Company, and the Exchanges. Since succeeding his uncle Sir Bennett at Charltons, he has involved himself in every local charity going in the Woolfonts and throughout South West Wiltshire; he is a Governor of the Beechbourne Free School, a Governor-Member of the Agincourt Housing Association Trust, and a Trustee of the Woolfont Consort of Music Trust, as well as serving on the various community boards and trusts for the W&CR, the community brewery, the Woolfonts & District Horticultural Society, the Woolfonts & District Fête Committee, the Woolfonts & District Agricultural Show, and the Bert and Betty Carpenter Memorial Garden, amongst others.

Personal life
In 1990, he married Melanie Cohen-Samuels, daughter of Sir Joseph Cohen-Samuels and his wife the Hon. Daphne (Abravanel-Lindo-)Lawrenson, daughter of Harry, Lord Chiltern. <p class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">They have three children: Bennett, aged 26, a trainee barrister in the City, engaged to Miriam Abravanel, violist of the Academy of Ancient Music and daughter of Sir Isaac Abravanel Kt FRCS; Nathan, aged 25, a trainee at Somers; and Esther, aged 23, beginning her training at MSL Metals HG and newly married (as of 2017) to the rising young artist-goldsmith Marcus Mocatta Montefiore.