Mrs Lewis (Melanie) Salmon

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Melanie (Mrs Lewis) Salmon is a philanthropist and scholar.

Early life
She was born, on 8 February 1967, Melanie Cohen-Samuels, the only daughter and third of four children of Sir Joseph Cohen-Samuels and his wife the Hon. Daphne Lawrenson (Lady Cohen-Salmon), daughter of Harry, Lord Chiltern.

A somewhat dreamy and bookish girl, Melanie Cohen-Samuels did quite well at Bedales, which, being a notably relaxed, liberal, live-and-let-live sort of place, suited her right down to the ground; her most notable moment at the school was her (comparatively) heated defence of Holman Hunt, and the Pre-Raphaelites generally, to a fellow pupil a year her senior. That fellow pupil was the budding industrial designer Sebastian Bergne, who, of course, is the grandson of the writer Diana Holman-Hunt, who was in turn Holman Hunt’s granddaughter. It was an incident which Melanie’s future husband’s uncle, Sir Bennett Salmon RA, whose tastes and style ran in similar directions to her own, was to tease her about for years. She also developed an interest in spinning and weaving whilst at school.

From Bedales, she went up (as did her Bedales year-mate the future Tory MP Rebecca Harris) to LSE, she intending to read Sociology; she swiftly realised that this was not for her, and, in the end, read Art History at the Courtauld.

Career
After taking her BA (Hons) in History of Art, and prior to her marriage in 1990, Melanie was a staff member at the Geffrye Musuem.

After her marriage, Melanie Salmon took her MA in History of Art from the Courtauld; and in subsequent years, notwithstanding the obligations of motherhood and householding, published three well-regarded books in the field, harking back to her early interest in textiles:
 * Threads and Illuminations: Early Modern Illuminated and Tapestry Ketubot of Amsterdam and London
 * The Tapestries of the Dutch Golden Age in the Works of the Delft School Painters
 * Sewing, and Reaping: Motifs in Parochets, Challah and Matzoh Covers, and Chuppas

Philanthropy
Melanie Salmon 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 including the Woolfonts & District Horticultural Society, the Woolfonts & District Fête Committee, the Bert and Betty Carpenter Memorial Garden, and the Woolfonts & District Lace-Making Society Trust, amongst others.

Personal life
In 1990, she married Lew Salmon, with whom she has 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.

She resides with her husband at Charltons, Woolfont Crucis, Wiltshire, and at their town flat in the City – and in her own words ‘resides in the increasing expectation of grandchildren, and soon’.