The Rothschild "Stammhaus," Frankfort-on-the-Main.

ROTHSCHILD:

By: Joseph Jacobs, Isidore Singer, Frederick T. Haneman, Jacques Kahn, Goodman Lipkind, J. de Haas, I. L. Bril

Source-Jewish Encyclopedia

Celebrated family of financiers, the Fuggers of the nineteenth century, deriving its name from the sign of a red shield borne by the house No. 148 in the Judengasse of Frankfort-on-the-Main. This house is mentioned in the "Judenstädtigkeit" of 1619, at which date its number was 69. Curiously enough, it at first bore the sign of a green shield ("Zum Gruünen Schild"). It was restored in 1886, and, though not in its original location, it still remains in possession of the Rothschilds as a kind of family museum and memorial.

The earliest notice of a member of the family, given in the burial records of Frankfort, is that of Moses Rothschild (b. c. 1550), whose daughter Esther died in 1608. Members of the same family are mentioned at Worms in the seventeenth century as rabbis (Lewysohn, "Sechzig Epitaphien zu Worms"). One of these, Mendel Rothschild, was for several years preacher in Prague, then rabbi of Bamberg, and finally rabbi of Worms for fourteen years.

The first Rothschild of any prominence was one Amschel Moses Rothschild, a small merchant and money-changer at Frankfort-on-the-Main; but the founder of the house was his sonMayer Amschel Rothschild, born in that city about 1743. When a boy Mayer used to be sent to exchange money for use in his father's banking business; and he thereby developed an interest in coins which was both practical and scientific. He was at one time destined for the rabbinate, and studied for that purpose in Fürth. He soon changed his career, however, and took a post in the Oppenheim banking-house in Hanover. About 1760 he started in business for himself in his native city, in the house of his father, who was then dead.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

He married, Aug. 29, 1770, Güttele Schnapper, who lived to see her sons at the head of European finance. Mayer was a general agent and banker, and traded also in works of art and curios. In the latter connection he became an agent of William IX., Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who on his father's death in 1785 had inherited the largest private fortune in Europe, derived mainly from the hire of troops to the British government for the putting down of the Revolution in the United States.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild had become acquainted with the crown prince in 1775, but does not seem to have done much business with him till toward the end of the next decade. He changed some English gold for him in 1789, and in 1794 took as much as £150,000 worth, but not alone, having associated with him no less than six other bullion-brokers of Frankfort. It was only toward the end of 1798 that he had sufficient credit with the prince to undertake single-handed any large quantity of gold brokerage. From 1800 to 1806 the landgrave placed with Rothschild 1,750,000 thaler, mostly at 4 per cent, part of it to be invested in Frankfort town loans, part in Danish loans. In 1801 he became the landgrave's court agent.

Meanwhile his third son, Nathan Mayer Roths-child (born at Frankfort Sept. 16, 1777), had settled in England under somewhat remarkable circumstances, as related by himself to Sir Thomas Buxton. The firm dealt in Manchester goods, and, having been treated somewhat cavalierly by a commercial traveler, Nathan at a moment's notice settled in Manchester (1798) with a credit of £20,000, upon which he earned no less than £40,000 during the following seven years by buying raw material and dyes, having the goods made up to his own order, and selling them abroad, thus making a triple profit. He became naturalized as a British subject June 12, 1804, and in 1805 went to London, establishing himself at first in St. Helen's place and afterward in New Court, St. Swithin's lane, still the office of the firm. He married shortly afterward a sister-in-law of Moses Montefiore, thus coming into association with the heads of the Sephardic community, then ruling the financial world of London through their connection with Amsterdam. Owing to Napoleon's seizure of Holland in 1803, the leaders of the anti-Napoleonic league chose Frankfort as a financial center wherefrom to obtain the sinews of war. After the battle of Jena in 1806 the Land-grave of Hesse-Cassel fled to Denmark, where he had already deposited much of his wealth through the agency of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, leaving in the hands of the latter specie and works of art of the value of £600,000. According to legend, these were hidden away in wine-casks, and, escaping the search of Napoleon's soldiers when they entered Frankfort, were restored intact in the same casks in 1814, when the elector returned to his electorate (see Marbot, "Memoirs," 1891, i. 310-311). The facts are somewhat less romantic, and more businesslike. Roths-child, so far from being in danger, was on such good terms with Napoleon's nominee, Prince Dalberg, that he had been made in 1810 a member of the Electoral College of Darmstadt. The elector's money had been sent to Nathan in London, who in 1808 utilized it to purchase £800,000 worth of gold from the East India Company, knowing that it would be needed for Wellington's Peninsular campaign. He made no less than four profits on this: (1) on the sale of Wellington's paper, (2) on the sale of the gold to Wellington, (3) on its repurchase, and (4) on forwarding it to Portugal. This was the beginning of the great fortunes of the house, and its early transactions may be divided into three stages, in each of which Nathan was the guiding spirit: namely, (1) from 1808 to 1815, mainly the transmission of bullion from England to the Continent for the use of the British armies and for subventions to the allies; (2) from 1816 to 1818, "bearing" operations on the stock exchange on the loans needed for the reconstruction of Europe after Napoleon's downfall; and (3) from 1818 to 1848, the undertaking of loans and of refunding operations, which were henceforth to be the chief enterprises of the house.