Robert Waley Cohen
British businessman (1877-1952)
Sir Robert Waley Cohen, KBE (8 September 1877 – 27 November 1952) was a British industrialist and prominent leader of Anglo-Jewry.
Early life
Robert Waley Cohen was born on 8 September 1877 to a prominent Jewish family. His father was Nathaniel Louis Cohen, a stock broker, and his mother was Julia Matilda Waley. Charles Waley Cohen, a soldier, barrister and Liberal Party politician was his brother, and Dorothea Waley Singer, a palaeographer and historian, was his sister. The English jurist and economist Jacob Waley was their maternal grandfather, while orientalist Arthur Waley was their cousin. Robert was educated at Clifton College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Career
Cohen joined the Shell Company, 1901 and negotiated its merger with the Royal Dutch Oil Company, 1906. He was a director of the merged company and chief assistant to its managing director.
Cohen was the petroleum adviser to the Army Council during World War I, for which he received a KBE, 1920. He retired from Shell in 1928 but became chairman of the African & Eastern Trade Corporation in 1929.
The public source identifies “Robert Waley Cohen” as british businessman (1877-1952). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Waley and Cohen.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2159119. VIAF identifies the subject as 311119632. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1952, 1901 and 1906.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Waley Cohen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.