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Rothschild family
European family

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Written by Jean Bouvier

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Mar 9, 2024 • Article History

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Recent News

Feb. 26, 2024, 2:17 PM ET (AP)

Financier and philanthropist Jacob Rothschild dies at 87

Top Questions

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Summarize This Article

Rothschild family, the most

famous of all European banking
dynasties, which for some 200
years exerted great influence on
zoom_in
the economic and, indirectly, the
political history of Europe. The
house was founded by Mayer
Amschel Rothschild (b. February 23,
Leopold de Rothschild, 1917.
1744, Frankfurt am Main—d.
September 19, 1812, Frankfurt) and
his five sons, Amschel Mayer (b.
June 12, 1773, Frankfurt—d. December 6, 1855, Frankfurt), Salomon
Mayer (b. September 9, 1774—d. July 27, 1855, Vienna), Nathan Mayer (b.
September 16, 1777—d. July 28, 1836, Frankfurt), Karl Mayer (b. April 24,
1788—d. March 10, 1855, Naples), and Jakob, or James, Mayer (b. May 15,
1792—d. November 15, 1868, Paris). Starting out in a Frankfurt banking
house, Mayer and his sons became international bankers, establishing
branches in London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples by the 1820s. In addition
to banking and finance, the Rothschild businesses have encompassed
mining, energy, real estate, and winemaking. From the early 19th
century the family has been known for its considerable charitable
activities, particularly in the arts and education.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Mayer’s family name derived from
the red (rot) shield on the house in
the ghetto in which his ancestors
had once lived. Intended for the zoom_in
rabbinate, Mayer studied briefly,
but his parents’ early death forced
him into an apprenticeship in a
Rothschild, Mayer Amschel
banking house. Soon after
Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
becoming court factor to William
IX, landgrave of Hesse-Kassel,
Mayer set the pattern that his
family was to follow so successfully—to do business with reigning houses
by preference and to father as many sons as possible who could take care
of the family’s many business affairs abroad.
 More From Britannica

Where Do Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories About the Rothschild

Family Come From?

Mayer’s five sons

Starting as dealers in luxury items and traders in coins and commercial
papers, Mayer and his sons eventually became bankers to whom the
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars of 1792–1815 came as a piece
of great good fortune. Mayer and his eldest son, Amschel, supervised the
growing business from Frankfurt, while Nathan established a branch in
London in 1804, Jakob settled in Paris in 1811, and Salomon and Karl
opened offices in Vienna and Naples, respectively, in the 1820s. The wars,
for the Rothschilds, meant loans to warring princes; smuggling as well as
legal trading in key products such as wheat, cotton, colonial produce, and
arms; and the transfer of international payments between the British
Isles and the Continent that Napoleon vainly attempted to close to British
trade. Peace transformed the growing Rothschild business: the banking
group continued its international business dealings but became more
and more an agent in government securities (Prussian or English, French
or Neapolitan), in insurance-company stocks, and in shares of industrial
companies. Thus, the family successfully adapted to the Industrial
Revolution and participated in economic growth throughout Europe with
their railway, coal, ironworking, and metallurgical investments. The
banking group continued to expand after the 1850s and, in particular,
achieved an important position in the world trade of oil and nonferrous
metals. But its previous oligopolistic position was seriously threatened by
new joint-stock banks and commercial, or deposit, banks both in England
and in France as well as in the German states. By the last quarter of the
19th century, the Rothschild group was no longer the first banking
consortium. Other groups, in Europe and in the United States, had
become stronger, richer, and more enterprising.

Yet, the two guidelines laid down by Mayer Amschel for the Rothschild
business operations (which, indeed, became a family tradition)—to
conduct all transactions jointly and never to aim for excessive profits—
helped to compensate to a notable extent for the inevitable risks
inherent in handing down a business to future generations not all of
whose members are qualified to run it. Amschel, Nathan, Jakob,
Salomon, and Karl—the founders of the Rothschild consortium—were
themselves unequally endowed: Nathan and Jakob stood out among their
brothers by the force of their personalities—particularly Nathan, who
was hard, deliberately boorish, and sarcastic. Jakob, who was his
brother’s equal in all these things, possessed an alleviating air of some
refinement as a result of living in the more-polished atmosphere of Paris.
The five founders in turn had unequal successors. For example, if
Alphonse in Paris (1827–1905) was a worthy successor to his father,
Jakob, his own son, Édouard (1868–1949), was not as strong a figure as
his position required. But Édouard’s son (Guy [1909–2007]) and his
cousins (Alain [1910–82] and Elie [1917–2007]) showed exceptional
adaptability and ambition, thus confirming the constant element in the
group’s history for a century and a half: a remarkable capacity for
seizing opportunities and for adapting in business as well as in politics.
Successive generations of the Rothschild family have been similarly
active in international finance and politics.

The second generation

zoom_in

Lionel Nathan de Rothschild.

In separating the circumstantial from the personal and individual
aspects of the dynasty’s hegemony during the 19th century, one must
note that, although the first group of Rothschilds arrived as strangers in
their new countries, unfamiliar with the languages and the customs and
subject to the jealousy and competition of local bankers, they stood out
from those around them by their fierce will to acquire a place in the sun.
By the second generation, when the sons of the five founding brothers
(notable among them were Anthony and Lionel Nathan in London and
Alphonse and Gustave in Paris) entered the business, the Rothschilds
were polished and refined, as well as naturalized and nationalized to the
point of blending into leadership positions without losing any of their
family attributes. It is possible that the young Rothschilds’ education and
the extremely worldly existence of the heads of the various houses
helped to create this true mutation. On the other hand, the Rothschilds
were influencing the national economy and politics of their countries as
greatly as they were being influenced themselves. Alphonse, for
example, as the head of the international banking syndicate that in 1871
and 1872 placed the two great French loans known as liberation loans
after France’s defeat by Prussia, could boast without immodesty that his
influence had maintained the chief of the French government, Adolphe
Thiers, in power. At the same time, in 1875, Lionel, in London (where he
had been a member of the House of Commons since 1858), was able to
give on a few hours notice the £4 million that allowed the British
government to become the principal stockholder in the Suez Canal
Company. Obviously, the two cousins had become important citizens in
their respective countries.

There were frequent marriages between Rothschild cousins, and

marriages generally were—with very rare exceptions—with Jews. In
spite of the number of their descendants and the complexity of their
family tree, the Rothschilds, particularly those of Vienna and Paris
during the Nazi period, preserved the kind of family unity necessary to
weather great misfortunes.
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The Rothschilds were much honoured. Mayer’s five sons were made
barons of the Austrian Empire, a Rothschild was the first Jew to enter the
British Parliament, and another was the first to be elevated to the British
peerage. The head of the British branch of the family has always been
considered the unofficial head of British Jewry. Members of the British
and French families—the only ones still engaged in banking after the
seizure by the Nazis of the Austrian house—distinguished themselves as
scientists and often as philanthropists. Baron Philippe de Rothschild
(1902–88) became a premier winemaker, of the vineyard Mouton-
Rothschild. In 2003–08 the British and French houses were merged,
marking the reunification of the Rothschild family business for the first
tocContents
time in nearly Summarize This Article
two centuries.

Jean Bouvier

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History & Society

Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild

British zoologist

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Also known as: Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild of Tring
Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Feb 4, 2024 • Article History

toc Table of Contents

Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (born February 8,

1868, London, England—died August 27, 1937, Tring, Buckinghamshire)
British zoologist who became a great collector and founded the
Rothschild Natural History Museum in London. The eldest son of Nathan
Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, he received his titles on the
death of his father in 1915.
Rothschild studied at the University of
Bonn and then at Magdalene College,
Cambridge, where his interests and
ambitions in zoology developed under
the influence of the distinguished
zoom_in
zoologist Alfred Newton. Rothschild’s
boyhood collections of insects
increased to include birds and Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd
Baron Rothschild
mammals, which he housed in
buildings on his father’s estate at See all media

Tring. After joining the bank of N.M.

Rothschild and Sons, he had less time
to devote to his museum and,
consequently, hired others to
continue its development; the
museum was opened to the public in
Category: History & Society
In full: Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd
Baron Rothschild of Tring
Born: February 8, 1868, London,
England
Died: August 27, 1937, Tring,

1892. Buckinghamshire (aged 69)

Title / Office: parliament (1899-1910),

United Kingdom
Britannica Quiz
House / Dynasty: Rothschild family
Faces of Science
Role In: Balfour Declaration

See all related content →

He served as a Conservative member of Parliament from 1899 to 1910. In
1917, because of his Zionist sympathies and his eminent position in the
Anglo-Jewish community, he received the letter from Arthur James (later
Lord) Balfour, then British foreign secretary, declaring the British
government’s interest in establishing in Palestine a national home for the
Jewish people; this letter became known as the Balfour Declaration.

Rothschild was a member of many scientific societies; alone and in

collaboration with his staff, he published many papers and monographs
on biological subjects. His museum held the largest collection of natural
history specimens ever assembled by one man; in 1932 the bird
collection was sold, because of a shortage of funds, to the American
Museum of Natural History in New York City. Rothschild willed his
tocContents
museum and its unique library to the British Museum (London), of which
he was a trustee.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.

History & Society

family
kinship

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Written by Alan John Barnard

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Mar 9, 2024 • Article History

toc Table of Contents

Recent News

Mar. 9, 2024, 3:25 PM ET (AP)

Irish prime minister concedes defeat in a vote over constitutional amendments about family and
women

Summary

Read a brief summary of this topic expand_more

Family, a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or

adoption, constituting a single household and interacting with each other
in their respective social positions, usually those of spouses, parents,
children, and siblings. The family group should be distinguished from a
household, which may include boarders and roomers sharing a common
residence. It should also be differentiated from a kindred (which also
concerns blood lines), because a kindred may be divided into several
households. Frequently the family is not differentiated from the
marriage pair, but the essence of the family group is the parent-child
relationship, which may be absent from many marriage pairs.

At its most basic, then, a family

consists of an adult and his or her
offspring. Most commonly, it consists
of two married adults, usually a man
Category: History & Society
Key People: Frédéric Le Play • Ernest
Watson Burgess • Johann Jakob
Bachofen • Jessie Bernard • Gail…

and a woman (almost always from Related Topics: adoption • nuclear

family • extended family • kul • joint
different lineages and not related by
family
blood) along with their offspring,
usually living in a private and See all related content →

separate dwelling. This type of unit,

more specifically known as a nuclear family, is believed to be the oldest
of the various types of families in existence. Sometimes the family
includes not only the parents and their unmarried children living at
home but also children that have married, their spouses, and their
offspring, and possibly elderly dependents as well; such an arrangement
is called an extended family.

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Christianity: Church and family

Socioeconomic aspects of the family

At its best, the family performs various valuable functions for its
members. Perhaps most important of all, it provides for emotional and
psychological security, particularly through the warmth, love, and
companionship that living together generates between spouses and in
turn between them and their children. The family also provides a
valuable social and political function by institutionalizing procreation
and by providing guidelines for the regulation of sexual conduct. The
family additionally provides such other socially beneficial functions as
the rearing and socialization of children, along with such humanitarian
activities as caring for its members when they are sick or disabled. On
the economic side, the family provides food, shelter, clothing, and
physical security for its members, some of whom may be too young or
too old to provide for the basic necessities of life themselves. Finally, on
the social side, the family may serve to promote order and stability
within society as a whole.
Historically, in most cultures, the family was patriarchal, or male-
dominated. Perhaps the most striking example of the male-dominated
family is the description of the family given in the Hebrew Bible (or Old
Testament), where the male heads of the clans were allowed to have
several wives as well as concubines. As a general rule, women had a
rather low status. In Roman times the family was still patriarchal, but
polygamy was not practiced, and in general the status of women was
somewhat improved over that suggested in the Hebrew Bible, although
they still were not allowed to manage their own affairs. The Roman
family was an extended one. The family as it existed in medieval Europe
was male-dominated and extended.

In the West, industrialization and the accompanying urbanization

spawned—and continue to spawn—many changes in family structure by
causing a sharp change in life and occupational styles. Many people,
particularly unmarried youths, left farms and went to urban centres to
become industrial workers. This process led to the dissolution of many
extended families.
The modern family that emerged after the Industrial Revolution is
different from the earlier model. For instance, patriarchal rule began to
give way to greater equality between the sexes. Similarly, family roles
once considered exclusively male or female broke down. Caring for the
home and children, once the exclusive duty of the female, is often a
shared activity, as, increasingly, is the earning of wages and the pursuit
of public life, once the exclusive domain of the male. The structure of the
family is also changing in that some couples choose not to marry legally
and instead elect to have their children out of wedlock; many of these
informal relationships tend to be of short duration, and this—as well as
the rise in levels of divorce—has led to a rapid increase in the number of
one-parent households.

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Especially in Western cultures, the modern family is today more of a

consuming as opposed to a producing unit, and the members of the
family work away from home rather than at home. Public authorities,
primarily governmental ones, have assumed many of the functions that
the family used to provide, such as caring for the aged and the sick,
educating the young, and providing for recreation. Technological
advancements have made it possible for couples to decide if and when
they want to have children.

Family law
Family law varies from culture to culture, but in its broadest application
it defines the legal relationships among family members as well as the
relationships between families and society at large. Some of the
important questions dealt with in family law include the terms and
parameters of marriage, the status of children, and the succession of
property from one generation to the next. In nearly every case, family
law represents a delicate balance between the interests of society and
the protection of individual rights.

The general rule in marriages until modern times was the legal transfer
of dependency, that of the bride, from father to groom. Not only did the
groom assume guardianship, he usually assumed control over all of his
wife’s affairs. Often, the woman lost any legal identity through marriage,
as was the case in English common law. There have been exceptions to
this practice. Muslim women, for instance, had considerable control over
their own personal property. The use of dowries, an amount of money or
property given to the husband with the bride in compensation for her
dependency, has long been practiced in many countries, but it has tended
to disappear in many industrial societies.
In general, modern marriage is best-described as a voluntary union,
usually between a man and a woman (although there are still vestiges of
the arranged marriage that once flourished in eastern Europe and Asia).
The emancipation of women in the 19th and 20th centuries changed
marriage dramatically, particularly in connection with property and
economic status. By the mid-20th century, most Western countries had
enacted legislation establishing equality between spouses. Similarly
changed is the concept of economic maintenance, which traditionally fell
on the shoulders of the husband. Though many laws still lean toward this
view, there was increasing recognition of a woman’s potential to
contribute to the support of the family. At the beginning of the 21st
century, family law and the notion of family itself was further
complicated by calls for acceptance of same-sex marriages and
nontraditional families.

Dissolution of marriages is one of the areas in which laws must try to

balance private and public interest, since realistically it is the couple
itself that can best decide whether its marriage is viable. In many older
systems—e.g., Roman, Muslim, Jewish, Chinese, and Japanese—some
form of unilateral divorce was possible, requiring only one party to give
notice of the intention, usually the male. Most modern systems recognize
a mutual request for divorce, though many require an attempt to
reconcile before granting divorce. Extreme circumstances, in which
blatant neglect, abuse, misbehaviour, or incapacity can be demonstrated,
find resolution in civil court. Many systems favour special family courts
that attempt to deal more fairly with sensitive issues such as custody of
children.

The issue of children poses special problems for family law. In nearly
every culture, the welfare of children was formerly left to the parents
entirely, and this usually meant the father. Most societies have come to
recognize the general benefit of protecting children’s rights and of
prescribing certain standards of rearing. Thus, more than in any other
area, family law intervenes in private lives with regard to children.
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Compulsory education is an example of the law superseding parental
authority. In the case of single-parent homes, the law will frequently
provide some form of support. Legislation on child labour and child
abuse also asserts society’s responsibility for a child’s best interests.

The succession of family interests upon the death of its members can be
considered a part of family law. Most legal systems have some means of
dealing with division of property left by a deceased family member. The
will, or testament, specifies the decedent’s wishes as to such distribution,
but a surviving spouse or offspring may contest what appear to be
unreasonable or inequitable provisions. There are also laws that
recognize family claims in the event that property is left intestate (i.e.,
with no will to determine its distribution).

Alan John Barnard