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In 1918, Sir Joseph Jonas who lived at Endcliffe House in Sheffield was arrested under the Official Secrets Act under suspicion of passing information to the Germans.

German-born Jonas had spent nearly 50 years building the Sheffield steel firm Jonas and Colver, which employed 2,000 people. He鈥檇 been Lord Mayor of Sheffield, received a knighthood, donated vast sums of money to the University of Sheffield and even played host to the King. His home was Endcliffe House; now a boutique hotel is called Halifax Hall.

World War One wasn't a good time to be a German living in Britain. In 1918, with the war going badly and anti-German sentiment running high, he was tried at the Old Bailey.

He had passed information about products made by a rival firm Vickers to a German customer. But that was in 1913, a year before war was declared. Jonas was found guilty of a misdemeanour, fined, stripped of his knighthood and disgraced.

Today, his grandson insists it was a politically motivated attack and a miscarriage of justice.

Location: Halifax Hall, Sheffield, Yorkshire S10 3ER
Photograph of Encliffe House then and now. Historic image courtesy of Sheffield Archive and Local Studies

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