The Dreyfus Affair was one of the greatest political scandals of late nineteenth-century France. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, was wrongly convicted of passing military secrets to Germany in 1894. His conviction, driven partly by antisemitism and supported by falsified evidence, divided France for more than a decade. He was finally cleared and reinstated in the army in 1906.

Clayton has an intriguing connection to the story. Charles Dreyfus, the French-born founder of the Clayton Aniline Company and a Manchester councillor, was reportedly a distant relative of Alfred Dreyfus. Charles also had a close political connection with Arthur Balfour, the local MP for Manchester East and former Prime Minister.

In 1906, Charles arranged an introduction between Balfour and Chaim Weizmann, a Jewish chemist working in Manchester and an increasingly prominent supporter of Zionism, the movement seeking a national home for the Jewish people. It is likely that the meeting took place at Clayton Conservative Club.

The introduction is noteworthy because Balfour later became Foreign Secretary and, in 1917, issued the Balfour Declaration, expressing British government support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Weizmann went on to become the first President of Israel.

There is no known evidence that Charles influenced Balfour’s views on the Dreyfus Affair itself. Nevertheless, his role in bringing Balfour and Weizmann together gives Clayton a remarkable connection to events that would have consequences far beyond Manchester.

Pictured: Alfred Dreyfus, and Clayton Conservative Club