Ellis Arthur Franklin

Franklin was born in Kensington, London into an affluent Anglo-Jewish family. He was the son of Arthur Ellis Franklin, a merchant banker and senior partner at Keyser & Co,[2] and his wife, Caroline Jacob.[3]

The family was related to both parts of the Montagu-Samuel banking-and-politics 'Cousinhood'. Franklin's grandfather was Ellis Abraham Franklin (1822-1909), a partner at Samuel Montagu and brother-in-law of Lord Swaythling. His uncle was Herbert Samuel, Home Secretary (1916), and the first High Commissioner for the British Mandate of Palestine.

His siblings included Helen Caroline Franklin (CBE), wife to Norman de Mattos Bentwich, Attorney General in the British Mandate of Palestine, active in trade union organisation, Women's Suffrage, and the London County Council on which she was a member, and Hugh Franklin, a militant suffragist and penal reform activist.

Ellis Franklin was a banker at Keyser & Co, where his father was senior partner.[2] Franklin became a teacher of a class in Electricity at The Working Men's College in 1919, having been introduced to the College by his uncle, the banker Lionel Jacob. By 1922 he had become Vice Principal of the College and was instrumental in attracting donations to the College from the City, and new College Corporation members from the Home Office, The Bar, and the City.[4]

Franklin married Muriel Frances Waley (1894–1976). They resided in London.[2] They had five children. Their son Colin Ellis Franklin (1923-2020) is a writer, bibliographer, book-collector and antiquarian bookseller. A further son Sir Roland Franklin (born 1926) is a merchant banker. Their late daughter, Rosalind Franklin, was the influential biophysicist.[2]

During World War II, Ellis A. Franklin helped Jewish refugees fleeing from the Continent, some being taken into the family home.[2]