Able Seaman Lewis Henry Salaman was born on August, 14, 1882, in Birmingham, the son of Dublin-born Joseph Wolff, chairman of the jewellers Messrs Levi and Salaman, and Annie Salaman (née Samuel), local to the area.
The younger Salaman attended King Edward’s High School before continuing his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in engineering.
Salaman afterwards followed into his father’s company, in which he became a director.
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He volunteered for the Public Schools’ (“D”) Company of the Hawke Battalion, Royal Naval Division in December 1914. His battalion landed at Cape Helles, on the Gallipoli coast, in May 1915.
He was killed on June 19, from the effects of a grenade, while on the frontline.
Before the war, Salaman had been a captain in the Birmingham Company of the Jewish Lads’ Brigade and had belonged to the Cambridge University Rifle Volunteers.
He had married, in 1912, to Alice Mildred Samuel.
Although buried close to the frontline on Mercer Road, Salaman has no known grave and is commemorated by the Helles Memorial.
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Levi and Salaman made many beautiful items and achieved a great deal of success. They are noted to have exhibited at the Barcelona Exhibition of 1888.
They also exhibited at the Jewellers’ Exhibition of 1913, where they showed an impressive selection of souvenir spoons, enamelled manicure sets and some fine electroplated Georgian style objects including a Peter Pan child’s set and “Rosen” pattern spoons.
The firm had a similar display at the Jewellers’ Exhibition of 1914, including silver-mounted tortoiseshell work, enamelled goods, toilet articles and all kinds of novelties in solid silver and electroplate.
The following year, at the British Industries Fair, they exhibited again, and one item in particular was of great historical interest.
It was a momento of the war – one of its silver spoons which had saved the life of a soldier by deflecting a bullet which otherwise would have wounded him.
This caught the interest of the Queen who attended on the opening day.