Nathan Mayer

Rothschild
• *16 September 1777
in the Frankfurt-am-Main ghetto–
• + 28 July 1836
• a London financier
• one of the founders of the international
Rothschild family banking dynasty
• the fourth child of Mayer Amschel
Rothschild (1744–1812) and Gutle
Schnapper (1753–1849).
 Origins
• The family's rise to international prominence began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), the son
of Amschel Moses Rothschild, a moneychanger. Born in the ghetto (called "Judengasse" or Jew Alley) of
Frankfurt am Main, he developed a finance house and spread his empire by installing each of his five sons
in European cities to conduct business. An essential part of Mayer Rothschild's strategy for future success
was to keep control of their businesses in family hands, allowing them to maintain full discretion about the
size of their wealth and their business achievements. Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the
family with carefully arranged marriages between closely related family members. His sons were:

• * Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1773–1855): Frankfurt

• * Salomon Mayer Rothschild (1774–1855): Vienna
• * Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777–1836): London
• * Calmann Mayer Rothschild (1788–1855): Naples
• * Jakob Mayer Rothschild (1792–1868): Paris

• The Rothschild coat of arms contains a clenched fist with five arrows symbolizing the five sons of Mayer
Rothschild, a reference to Psalm 127. The family motto appears below the shield, in Latin, Concordia,
Integritas, Industria, (Harmony, Integrity, Industry). The German family name means "Red Shield".

• Families by country:

• * Rothschild banking family of Naples

• * Rothschild banking family of England
• * Rothschild banking family of Austria
• * Rothschild banking family of France
 Description

• An anonymous contemporary described Nathan Rothschild at the London

Stock Exchange as "he leaned against the 'Rothschild Pillar' [...], hung his
heavy hands into his pockets, and began to release silent, motionless,
implacable cunning":
• "Eyes are usually called the windows of the soul. But in Rothschild's case you
would conclude that the windows are false ones, or that there was no soul to
look out of them. There comes not one pencil of light from the interior, neither is
there one gleam of that which comes from without reflected in any direction.
The whole puts you in mind of an empty skin, and you wonder why it stands
upright without at least something in it. By and by another figure comes up to it.
It then steps two paces aside, and the most inquisitive glance that you ever
saw, and more inquisitive than you would ever have thought of, is drawn out of
those fixed and leaden eyes, as if one were drawing a sword from a scabbard.
The visiting figure, which has the appearance of coming by accident and not by
design, stops just a second or two, in the course of which looks are exchanged
which, though you cannot translate, you feel must be of most important
meaning. After this, the eyes are sheathed up again, and the figure resumes its
stony posture.
During the morning, numbers of visitors come, all of whom meet with a similar
reception and vanish in a similar manner. Last of all the figure itself vanishes,
leaving you utterly at a loss..."
 Family

• 22 October 1806 in London marriage with Hannah Barent-Cohen (1783–1850)

• daughter of Levi Barent-Cohen (1747–1808) and wife Lydia Diamantschleifer
and paternal granddaughter of Barent Cohen and wife, whose other son
Salomon David Barent-Cohen (d. 1807) married Sara Brandes, great-
grandparents of Karl Marx.

• Their children were:

• 1. Charlotte Rothschild (1807–1859) married Anselm von Rothschild

• 2. Lionel Nathan (1808–1879)
• 3. Anthony Nathan (1810–1876)
• 4. Nathaniel (1812–1870)
• 5. Hannah Mayer (1815–1864) married Hon. Henry FitzRoy (1807–1859)
• 6. Mayer Amschel (1818–1874)
• 7. Louise (1820–1894) married Mayer Karl von Rothschild
 Nathan Mayer Rothschild’s life and
business

• 1798, at the age of 2, a textile merchant in

Manchester, then
• from 1804 he began to deal on the London
stock exchange in financial instruments such
as foreign bills and government securities.
• From 1809 Rothschild began to deal in gold
bullion, and developed this as a cornerstone
of his business.
 Nathan Mayer Rothschild’s life and
business
• From 1811 transfer money to pay Wellington's troops, on campaign in
Portugal and Spain against Napoleon, and later to make subsidy
payments to British allies when these organized new troops after
Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign.
• His four brothers helped co-ordinate activities across the continent, and
the family developed a network of agents, shippers and couriers to
transport gold – and information – across Europe. This private intelligence
service enabled Nathan to receive in London the news of Wellington's
victory at the Battle of Waterloo a full day ahead of the government's
official messengers.
• 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, although he chose not to use his
aristocratic title Nathan Mayer, Freiherr von Rothschild.
 Nathan Mayer Rothschild’s life and
business
• 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.
• In 1824 he founded the Alliance Assurance
Company (now Royal & SunAlliance) with
Moses Montefiore.
 Nathan Mayer Rothschild’s life and
business
• 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.
• He set up his London business, N. M. Rothschild and
Sons at New Court in St Swithin's Lane, City of
London, where it trades today.
• He also purchased a country house at Gunnersbury
Park near Acton in western London.
 Slavery
• Records from the National Archives
examined in 2009 show that Nathan Mayer
Rothschild financially benefited from
slavery.
• Prior to this Rothschild was better known for
his role in the abolition of the slave trade
through his part-financing of the £20 million
British government buyout of the
plantation industry's slaves.
 Death

• By the time an infected abscess caused his death in

1836
• his personal net worth amounted to 0.62% of British
national income
• ecured the position of the Rothschild 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.
 Waterloo Legend
• In the 19th century a legend began which accuses him of having used his early knowledge of
victory at the Battle of Waterloo to speculate on the Stock Exchange and make a vast fortune.

• Rothschild got the information of England's chief financial agents much time before the Royals
• He tells the government that Napoleon had lost the war: but his news was not believed,
because the government had just heard of the English defeat at Quatre Bras.
• Then he proceeded to the Stock Exchange.
• He leaned against "his" pillar. He did not invest into consols. He sold. He dumped consols.
• ...Consols dropped still more. "Rothschild knows," the whisper rippled through the 'Change.
"Waterloo is lost.“ The people started to sell also.
• Nathan kept on selling ... consols plummeted—until, a split second before it was too late,
Nathan suddenly bought a giant parcel for very little money.
• Moments afterwards the great news of the victory broke, and the consols rose again. And
Nataha Mayer Rothschild made a very big fortune above £1 million.

• Research by the Rothschild family and others has shown that this legend originated in an anti-
semitic French pamphlet in 1846, was embellished by John Reeves in 1887 in
• The Rothschilds: the Financial Rulers of Nations and then repeated in other later popular
accounts, such as that of Morton, Honoré de Balzac.
• Many of the alleged facts stated are incorrect. For example, it has been shown that the size
of the market in government bonds at the time would not have enabled a scenario producing
a profit of anything near £1 million.
Antisemitic conspiracy theories
• The Rothschild rule the freemasons, Illuminati
and have alien contacts
• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
• All 19th century wars were made by the
Rothschild family because the wars depended
on the financial help of the Rothschild
 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
fabricated sometime between 1895 and 1902 by Russian journalist Matvei
Golovinski
Progroms in Russia
Used by the Nazis for antisemitic propaganda
Still in use for antisemitic aims
Edmon Rothschild
 Sourses
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family
• http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ta/

• Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of

prejudice and persecution, Volumen 1
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion