Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (22 November 1808 – 3 June 1879) was a
British Jew
British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British people, British citizens who identify as Jews, Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 ...
ish banker, politician and philanthropist who was a member of the prominent
Rothschild banking family of England. He became the first practising Jew to sit as a Member of Parliament in the
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 me ...
.
Life and career
The eldest son of
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild (16 September 1777 – 28 July 1836) was an English-German banker, businessman and financier. Born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, he was the third of the five sons of Gutle (Schnapper) and Mayer Amschel Rothschild, an ...
and his wife, Hannah Barent-Cohen, he was a member of the wealthy
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...
. Both of his parents were Jewish. He was born in London, where his father had founded the English branch of the Europe-wide family.
In his earlier years, he studied at the
University of Göttingen before embarking on an apprenticeship in the family business at London, Paris and Frankfurt. He was admitted to the family partnership in 1836 at a family gathering in Frankfurt.
Like his father, he was a ''
Freiherr'' (
baron
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...
) of the
Austrian Empire, but unlike his father, he used the title in British society. By royal licence of
Queen Victoria on 16 June 1838, he was allowed (along with other male-line descendants of his late father) to use the Austrian title of baron in the United Kingdom.
Prime Minister
Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
proposed to Queen Victoria that Lionel be made a
British peer. She demurred, saying that titling a Jew would raise antagonism and furthermore it would be unseemly to reward a man whose vast wealth was based on what she called "a species of gambling" rather than legitimate trade. However, the Queen did raise Lionel's son
Nathan
Nathan or Natan may refer to:
People
*Nathan (given name), including a list of people and characters with this name
*Nathan (surname)
*Nathan (prophet), a person in the Hebrew Bible
* Nathan (son of David), biblical figure, son of King David an ...
to the peerage in 1885, and he became the first Jewish member of the
House of Lords.
Banker
Rothschild was responsible for raising large sums for the government, especially in the
Crimean war, and for philanthropic relief of the victims of the
Great Irish Famine
The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a ...
. On 1 January 1847, he founded the
British Relief Association, alongside
Stephen Spring Rice,
John Abel Smith
John Abel Smith (2 June 1802 – 7 January 1871) was a British Member of Parliament (MP) for Chichester and Midhurst.
He was the son of John Smith who preceded him as one of the members of parliament for Midhurst.
Smith married Anne Jervoise, ...
and other notable aristocrats. The Association went on to raise £500,000, and was the largest private provider of relief during the Irish Famine and
Highland Potato Famine. In 1861, in protest at the suppression of the
Polish uprisings, he (initially) refused to contract a loan to
Russia. His most famous undertaking was financing the government's purchase of the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
shares from
Egypt for £4 million.
Parliament
In 1847, Lionel de Rothschild was first elected to the
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...
as one of four Members of Parliament for the
City of London constituency. Because Jews were at that point still barred from sitting in the chamber due to the Christian
oath required to be sworn in, Prime Minister
Lord John Russell introduced a
Jewish Disabilities Bill
Jewish disabilities were legal restrictions, limitations and obligations placed on European Jews in the Middle Ages. In Europe, the disabilities imposed on Jews included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as t ...
to remove the problem with the oath. In 1848, the bill was approved by the House of Commons but was twice rejected by the
House of Lords. After being rejected again by the Upper House in 1849, Rothschild resigned his seat and stood again winning in a by-election to strengthen his claim.
In 1850, he entered the House of Commons to take his seat but refused to swear on a Christian Bible asking to use only the
Hebrew Bible. This was permitted but when omitting the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" from the oath he was required to leave.
In 1851, a new Jewish Disabilities Bill was defeated in the House of Lords. In the 1852 general election, Rothschild was again elected but the next year the bill was again defeated in the upper house.
[Paul Herman Emden, 1944. Jews of Britain: A Series of Biographies. S. Low, Marston & Company, Limited.]
Finally, in the
Jews Relief Act 1858, the House of Lords agreed to a proposal to allow each house to decide its own oath. On 26 July 1858, Rothschild took the oath with covered head, substituting "so help me,
Jehovah
Jehovah () is a Latinization of the Hebrew , one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament. The Tetragrammaton is considered one of the seven names of God in Judais ...
" for the ordinary form of oath, and thereupon took his seat as the first Jewish member of Parliament.
[Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin, 2017. Sub Rosa. Salem House Press. p. 247. .] He was re-elected in general elections in 1859 and 1865, but defeated in 1868; he was returned unopposed in a by-election in 1869 but defeated a second time in the general election in 1874.
Personal life and family
A patron of
thoroughbred horse racing, under the assumed name of "Mr Acton", his colt
Sir Bevys won the 1879
Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, also known as the Epsom Derby or the Derby, and as the Cazoo Derby for sponsorship reasons, is a Group 1 flat horse race in England open to three-year-old colts and fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey o ...
.
In 1836, Lionel de Rothschild married his first cousin Baroness
Charlotte von Rothschild
''Freifrau'' Charlotte von Rothschild (13 June 1819 – 13 March 1884) was a Germany, German-born United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British socialite. She was a member of the Rothschild banking family of Naples.
Family
Rothschild w ...
(1819–1884), daughter of Baron
Carl Mayer von Rothschild
Carl Mayer ''Freiherr'' von Rothschild (24 April 1788 – 10 March 1855) was a German-born banker in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the founder of the Rothschild banking family of Naples.
Biography
Born Kalman Mayer Rothschild in Frankfur ...
of the
Rothschild banking family of Naples.
They had the following children:
# Leonora (1837–1911)
#
Evelina (1839–1866)
#
Nathan Mayer (1840–1915)
#
Alfred Charles (1842–1918)
#
Leopold (1845–1917)
Illness and death
Lionel de Rothschild suffered from
gout for more than 20 years. He had a seizure on 3 June 1879 and died the next morning in his city home at 148 Piccadilly in London, aged 70. His body was interred at the
Willesden Jewish Cemetery in the
North London suburb of
Willesden.
See also
*
History of the Jews in England
*
Electoral firsts in the United Kingdom
This article lists notable achievements of women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and LGBT people in British politics.
Women
Women over 30 granted the right to vote: 1918
Women granted the right to vote on the same terms as men: 19 ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
* See also the list of references at:
Rothschild banking family of England
External links
*
*
of the
Austrian Empire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rothschild, Lionel de
1808 births
1879 deaths
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1847–1852
UK MPs 1852–1857
UK MPs 1857–1859
UK MPs 1859–1865
UK MPs 1865–1868
UK MPs 1868–1874
British philanthropists
British racehorse owners and breeders
Owners of Epsom Derby winners
English art collectors
Jewish British politicians
Lionel
English Jews
British Ashkenazi Jews
British railway entrepreneurs
Burials at Willesden Jewish Cemetery
English people of German-Jewish descent
N M Rothschild & Sons people
British bankers
Jewish bankers
19th-century British businesspeople