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- The British nobility consists of the peerage and the gentry. The peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles, granted by the British sovereign. Under this system, only the senior family member bears a substantive title (duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron). The gentry are generally untitled members of the upper classes, however, exceptions include baronets, knights, Scottish feudal barons and lairds. The history of the Jews in Britain goes back to the reign of William the Conqueror. The first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070, although Jews may have lived there since Roman times. The Jewish presence continued until King Edward I's Edict of Expulsion in 1290. After the expulsion, there was no Jewish community (apart from individuals who practised Judaism secretly) until the rule of Oliver Cromwell. While Cromwell never officially readmitted Jews to Britain, a small colony of Sephardic Jews living in London was identified in 1656 and allowed to remain. The Jewish Naturalisation Act of 1753, an attempt to legalise the Jewish presence in Britain, remained in force for only a few months. In 1858, practising Jews were finally allowed to sit in Parliament after the passage of the Jews Relief Act, which was a significant step on the path to Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom. The first Jewish knight was Sir Solomon de Medina, knighted in 1700, with no further Jews being knighted until 1837, when Queen Victoria knighted Moses Montefiore. Four years later, Isaac Goldsmid was made a baronet, the first Jew to receive a hereditary title. In 1885, Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, became the first Jew to receive a peerage title. (en)
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| rdfs:comment
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- The British nobility consists of the peerage and the gentry. The peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles, granted by the British sovereign. Under this system, only the senior family member bears a substantive title (duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron). The gentry are generally untitled members of the upper classes, however, exceptions include baronets, knights, Scottish feudal barons and lairds. (en)
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