Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild

For other persons with a similar name, see Nathaniel Rothschild.

Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, GCVO, PC (8 November 1840 – 31 March 1915) was a British banker and politician from the wealthy international Rothschild family. He was also a hereditary Baron of the Austrian Empire.

The Right Honourable The Lord Rothschild GCVO PC
Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire
In office 1889–1915
Monarchs	Victoria Edward VII George V
Preceded by	The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Lincolnshire
Member of Parliament for Aylesbury
In office 1865–1885 Serving with Samuel George Smith 1865–1880 George W. E. Russell 1880–1885
Preceded by	Thomas Tyringham Bernard Samuel George Smith
Succeeded by	Ferdinand James von Rothschild
Personal details
Born	Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild (1840-11-08)8 November 1840 London, England
Died	31 March 1915(1915-03-31) (aged 74) London, England
Resting place	Willesden Jewish Cemetery
Political party	Liberal then Liberal Unionist then Conservative
Spouse	Emma Louise von Rothschild ​ ​ (m. 1867)​
Children	Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild Evelina Rothschild-Behrens Charles Rothschild
Parent(s)	Lionel de Rothschild Charlotte von Rothschild
Relatives	Nathan Mayer Rothschild (grandfather) Mayer Amschel Rothschild (great-grandfather)
Residence(s)	148 Piccadilly, London
Education	Trinity College, Cambridge
Occupation	Banker

Early life

See also: Rothschild banking family of England

Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild was the eldest son of Baron Lionel de Rothschild (1808–1879) and Baroness Charlotte von Rothschild (née von Rothschild). His paternal grandparents were Nathan Mayer Rothschild, after whom he was named, and Hannah Barent-Cohen, daughter of Levy Barent Cohen. His maternal grandparents were Carl Mayer von Rothschild (1788–1855) and Adelheid Herz (1800–1853). Through both of his grandfathers, who were brothers, he was the great-grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), founder of the dynasty.

In his youth, Rothschild was a Captain in the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a friend of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), but left without taking a degree.

Career

Rothschild worked as a partner in the London branch of the family bank, N M Rothschild & 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 US, Russia and Austria. Following the Rothschilds' funding of the Suez Canal, a close relationship was maintained with Benjamin Disraeli and affairs in Egypt.

Rothschild also funded Cecil Rhodes in the development of the British South Africa Company and the De Beers diamond conglomerate. He later administered Rhodes' estate after Rhodes' death in 1902 and helped to set up the Rhodes Scholarship scheme at the University of Oxford. He was a prominent member of the Round Table movement, created in 1909.

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. From 1889 until his death, he was Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and was well known as an agriculturist.

In the 1902 Coronation Honours list, he was appointed a Privy Counsellor and was sworn a member of the council at Buckingham Palace on 11 August 1902. On the same day, he was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Knight Grand Cross (GCVO).

House of Commons

From 1865 to 1885, Nathan Rothschild sat in the House of Commons as Liberal Member of Parliament for Aylesbury. His father Lionel had previously been elected for the City of London from 1847 but had been unable to take the obligatory oath until 1858; they were MPs together from 1865 to 1868 and from 1869 to 1874.

Baron Rothschild

In 1847, his uncle Anthony Nathan de Rothschild (1810–1876) was made a baronet in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. Since Sir Anthony had no male heirs, upon his death, the baronetcy passed by special remainder to his nephew Nathan.

In 1885, Rothschild became a member of the House of Lords when he was created Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertford, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He was also a hereditary Freiherr (baron) of the Austrian Empire, a noble title that he had inherited via his father. In 1838, Queen Victoria had authorized the use of this Austrian title in the United Kingdom.

When he was raised to the peerage by Gladstone, Rothschild was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords not to have previously converted to Christianity. (Disraeli had been created Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, but he was baptised into Anglicanism at age twelve.)

In common with the rest of his family, Rothschild joined the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party, formed in 1886 by Joseph Chamberlain, which ultimately merged into the Conservative Party.

In 1909, he was famously derided by David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, over his opposition to the People's Budget, when the latter said, at a meeting at the Holborn Restaurant on 24 June that year: "I really think we are having too much Lord Rothschild. Are we to have all ways of reform, financial and social, blocked, simply by a notice-board; 'No Thoroughfare. By Order of Nathaniel Rothschild'?" Rothschild recommended the Lords reject the Parliament Bill, which was, however, passed.

In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Rothschild was consulted for economic advice by Lloyd George. At his first invitation to confer at the Treasury, when asked what could be done to raise more money for the war effort, Rothschild reportedly answered: "Tax the rich, and tax them heavily."

Personal life

Emma Louise von Rothschild in 1902

Portrait of his daughter, Evelina, by Philip de László, 1911

On 16 April 1867, he married Emma Louise von Rothschild (1844–1935), a double first cousin (i.e., they shared both sets of grandparents) from the Rothschild banking family of Germany in Frankfurt. They had three children:

• Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868–1937), who never married but had two mistresses, one of whom bore him a daughter.
• Charlotte Louisa Adela Evelina Rothschild (1873–1947), who married Clive Behrens, son of Edward Behrens of Bettisfield Park, Whitchurch, in 1899.
• Nathaniel Charles Rothschild (1877–1923), who married Rózsika Edle von Wertheimstein (1870–1940)

He died in London, five days after an operation, on 31 March 1915 and was buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery. Following his death, the peerage was inherited by his son, Lionel Walter Rothschild.

See also

• History of the Jews in England
• Rothschild banking family of England

Sources

• Cooper, John (2015). The Unexpected Story of Nathaniel Rothschild. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4729-1707-2.
• Roth, Cecil (1939). The Magnificent Rothschilds. R. Hale.
• Valynseele, Joseph; Mars, Henri-Claude (2004). Le Sang des Rothschild (in French). Paris: ICC Editions. ISBN 978-2-908003-22-2.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Nathan Rothschild
• Newspaper clippings about Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW