Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild (16 September 1777 – 28 July 1836, also known as Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild,[1] was an English-German banker, businessman and financier. Born in Frankfurt am Main, he was the third of the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his wife, Guttle (née Schnapper). He was the founder of the English branch of the prominent Rothschild family.
This article is about the 18th and 19th century financier. For his grandson, see Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild. For other persons with a similar name, see Nathaniel Rothschild (disambiguation).
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
16 September 1777
28 July 1836 (aged 58)
- Charlotte Rothschild
- Lionel de Rothschild
- Sir Anthony de Rothschild, 1st Baronet
- Nathaniel de Rothschild
- Hannah Mayer Rothschild
- Mayer Amschel de Rothschild
- Louise Rothschild
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Guttle Schnapper
Early life, origins in Frankfurt[edit]
Nathan Mayer Rothschild was born on 16 September 1777 to Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Guttle Schnapper in the Jewish ghetto area of Frankfurt in the Holy Roman Empire (in present-day Germany). He was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was the third son, and his brothers were Amschel Mayer Rothschild, Salomon Mayer Rothschild, Carl Mayer Rothschild and James Mayer Rothschild. All five brothers would go on to become close business partners spread out across Europe. They had five sisters, including Henriette Rothschild, who married Abraham Montefiore.[2]
Move to England and involvement in textile trade[edit]
In 1798, at the age of 21, he settled in Manchester, England, and established a business in textile trading and finance. He later moved to London and began dealing on the London Stock Exchange from 1804. He made a fortune in trading bills of exchange through a banking enterprise begun in 1805, dealing with financial instruments such as foreign bills and government securities.[3]
Rothschild became a freemason of the Emulation Lodge, No. 21, of the Premier Grand Lodge of England on 24 October 1802, in London. Up until this point, the few Ashkenazi Jews who lived in England tended to belong to the "Antients" on account of their generally lower social class, while the more established Sephardim joined the Moderns.[4][5]
Slavery[edit]
In the aftermath of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 with the Slave Compensation Act 1837, Rothschild and his business partner Moses Montefiore loaned the British Government £15 million (worth £1.8 billion in 2024) [25] with interest which was subsequently paid off by the British taxpayers (ending in 2015). This money was used to compensate the slave owners in the British Empire after the trade had been abolished. According to the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership at the University College London, Rothschild himself was a successful claimant under the scheme.[26]
He was a beneficiary as mortgage holder to a plantation in the colony of Antigua (present day Antigua and Barbuda) which included 158 enslaved Black people. He received a £2,571 compensation payment, at the time (worth £308,196 in 2024).[25][27]
Later dealings and death[edit]
In 1835 he secured a contract with the Spanish Government giving him the rights to the Almadén mines in southern Spain, effectively gaining a European mercury monopoly.[28] He died from an infected abscess in Frankfurt in 1836.[29]
His body was brought to London for burial, with the funeral procession on 8 August from his house on New Court in the City of London to the Brady Street Ashkenazi Cemetery in Whitechapel accompanied by three police Superintendents (those of the London City Police and of H and K Divisions of the new Metropolitan Police), William Taylor Copeland (Lord Mayor of London) and contingents from the Jews' Orphan Asylum and the Jews' Free School, and the graveside address given by Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell.[30] Nathan's wife Hannah was later buried alongside him.[31]