Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild - Biography

Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild (8 November 1840 – 31 March 1915) was a British banker and politician from the international Rothschild financial dynasty.

Life and family

Known as "Natty", he was the eldest son of Baron Lionel de Rothschild (1808-1879) and Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild (née von Rothschild), grandson of Nathan Mayer Rothschild after whom he was named, and the great-grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild founder of the dynasty.

He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a friend of the Prince of Wales, but left without taking a degree.

On 16 April 1867 he married Emma Louise von Rothschild (1844-1935), a cousin from the Rothschild banking family of Germany in Frankfurt. They had the following children:

• Lionel Walter (1868-1937)
• Charlotte Louisa Adela Evelina (1873-1947)
• Nathaniel Charles (1877-1923)

Baron

In 1847, his uncle Anthony Nathan de Rothschild (1810-1876) was created 1st Baronet de Rothschild, of Tring Park. Because Anthony had no male heirs, on his death the baronetcy passed to his nephew Nathan Mayer Rothschild. In 1885, he subsequently became a member of the House of Lords and was created Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertford, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He also was Baron (Freiherr) von/de Rothschild, of the Austrian Empire, a nobility title he had inherited via his father.

Lord Rothschild was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords not previously converted to Christianity. (For example, Benjamin Disraeli had been created Lord Beaconsfield in 1876, but was baptized into Anglicanism at age twelve.) The peerage was inherited by his son Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild.

Work

He worked as a partner in the London branch of the family bank NM Rothschild and Sons and became head of the bank after his father's death in 1879. During his tenure he also maintained its pre-eminent position in private venture finance and in issuing loans to the governments of the USA, Russia and Austria. Following the Rothschilds' funding of the Suez Canal a close relationship was maintained with Benjamin Disraeli and affairs in Egypt.

Natty also funded Cecil Rhodes in the development of the British South Africa Company and the De Beers diamond conglomerate. He succeeded him as General of the Society of the Elect and later administered Rhodes's estate after his death in 1902 and helped to set up the Rhodes Scholarship scheme at Oxford University.

A noted philanthropist, Rothschild was heavily involved with the foundation of the Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company, a model dwellings company whose aim was to provide decent housing, predominantly for the Jews of Spitalfields and Whitechapel. He also served as a trustee of the London Mosque Fund until his death.

Death

He died on 31 March 1915.

See also

• History of the Jews in England

Cultural references

• Appears as a minor character in the historical-mystery novel Stone's Fall, by Iain Pears.

• Joseph Valynseele & Henri-Claude Mars, Le Sang des Rothschild, L’Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux, Paris.
• See also the list of references at Rothschild banking family of England

External links