Nathan Mayer Rothschild
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- This article is not about Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild (1840-1915)
Nathan Mayer Rothschild (September 16, 1777 - July 28, 1836) was a London financier and one of the founders of the international Rothschild banking dynasty. He was born in the Frankfurt-am-Main ghetto, the fourth child of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) and Gutle Schnapper (1753-1849).
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Life
In 1798, at the age of 21, he settled in Manchester and established a business in textile trading and finance, later moving to London, England and making a fortune in trading bills of exchange.
In 1816, his two elder brothers were granted noble status (Freiherr or Baron) by the Emperor of Austria. They were now permitted to prefix the Rothschild name with 'von' or 'de'. Their device of four arrows became five when in 1818 Nathan too was elevated. Nathan rather disliked the whole business of aristocratic titles. Some have suggested that he felt a foreign title set him apart too much from his English neighbors.
Family
On October 22, 1806 in London, he married Hanna Barent Cohen (1783-1850). Their children were:
- Charlotte Rothschild (1807-1859)
- Lionel Nathan (1808-1879)
- Anthony Nathan Rothschild (1810-1876)
- Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870)
- Hannah Mayer Rothschild (1815-1864)
- Mayer Amschel (1818-1872) known as Baron Mayer de Rothschild
- Louise Rothschild (1820-1894)
Business
Through establishing a network of agents, couriers and shippers he was able to provide funds to the armies of the Duke of Wellington in Spain and Portugal. In 1818 he arranged a £5 million loan to the Prussian government and the issuing of bonds for government loans formed a mainstay of his bank’s business. He gained a position of such power in the City of London that by 1825-6 he was able to supply enough coin to the Bank of England to enable it to avert a liquidity crisis.
He set up his London business, N. M. Rothschild and Sons at New Court in St Swithin's Lane where it trades today, and purchased a country house at Gunnersbury Park near Acton in western London.
Death
By the time of his death in 1836 he had secured the position of the Rothschilds as the preeminent investment bankers in Britain and Europe. His son, Lionel Nathan Rothschild (1808-1879), continued the family business in England.
Nathan Mayer Rothschild and his wife Hannah are buried in the Brady Street Ashkenazi Cemetery, in Whitechapel.
Prominent English Rothschild family members
- Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777-1836)
- Moses Haim Montefiore (1784-1885) (Married daughter of Mayer Amschel Rothschild the original family patriarch)
- Baron Mayer de Rothschild (1818-1874)
- Lionel de Rothschild (1808-1879)
- Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild (1840-1915)
- Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery (1851-1890) (Daughter of Baron Mayer de Rothschild)
- Charles Rothschild (1877-1923)
- Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (1868-1937)
- Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild (1910-1990)
- Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005)
- Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild (b. 1936)
See also
External links
- N. M. Rothschild and Sons (http://www.rothschild.com/home/)
- Rothschild Archive (http://www.rothschildarchive.org/)he:נתן מאיר רוטשילד