Frankfurt's Rothschilds built Europe's private banking web
The Rothschilds, an Ashkenazi Jewish banking dynasty from Frankfurt, rose from sixteenth-century records to nineteenth-century dominance of European finance, holding what was then the world's largest private fortune. Mayer Amschel's five sons spread the business across Europe's capitals, keeping control and secrecy within the family.
The Rothschilds are an Ashkenazi Jewish banking family from Frankfurt whose name comes from a house built there in 1567, zum rothen Schild, at the red shield; Isaak Elchanan Rothschild, born in 1577, is the first known to have used it. Their rise began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a court factor to the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, who set up his bank in the 1760s. Unlike most court factors, he passed on his wealth, placing his five sons in Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Naples, and Paris.
Keeping the banks in family hands let them conceal the size of their fortunes. The emperor Francis I of Austria made all five brothers barons on 29 September 1822, and Queen Victoria later gave the British branch a baronetcy in 1847. In the nineteenth century the family held the largest private fortune in modern history and dominated European finance from the 1820s until joint-stock banks broke that hold in the 1870s.
Nathan Mayer Rothschild began in Manchester in 1806, moved to 2 New Court in the City of London in 1809, where the bank still stands, and founded N M Rothschild & Sons in 1811. From 1813 to 1815 he moved bullion to Wellington's armies and paid British subsidies to allies, £9.8 million in 1815 alone, using a network of agents and couriers that often brought him news before rivals. He lent Prussia £5 million in 1818, and in 1825 to 1826 supplied the Bank of England with enough coin to head off a liquidity crisis.
The family financed railways and projects such as the Suez Canal, lent nearly $450 million to European governments between 1895 and 1907, raised Brazil's £2 million compensation to Portugal for independence, and controlled the Rio Tinto mining company from the 1880s. They also funded Cecil Rhodes and bought much of London's Mayfair. The historian Paul Johnson called them elusive, the subject of libraries of nonsense.
Source: Rothschild family
