1879 Laurence Oliphant

In 1879, Oliphant left for Palestine, where he hoped to promote Jewish agricultural settlement. Later, he saw these settlements as a means of alleviating Jewish suffering in Eastern Europe. He visited Constantinople in the hopes of obtaining a lease on the northern half of the Holy Land and settling large numbers of Jews there (this was prior to the first wave of Jewish settlement by Zionists in 1882). He did not see this as an impossible task in view of the large numbers of Christian believers in the United States and England who supported this plan. With financial support from Christadelphians and others in Britain, Oliphant amassed sufficient funding to purchase land and settle Jewish refugees in the Galilee.

While living in Haifa, he hired Naftali Hertz Imber to work for him. Of note, Imber was a Hebrew poet and his poem that he wrote in Israel, Ha Tiqvah ― when set to music ― became the Zionist and Israel national anthem.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Oliphant_(author)