Charles Rothschild

Nathaniel Charles Rothschild (9 May 1877 – 12 October 1923), known as "Charles", was an English banker and entomologist and a member of the Rothschild family. He is remembered for The Rothschild List, a list he made in 1915 of 284 sites across Britain that he considered suitable for nature reserves.

Charles Rothschild
Charles Rothschild
Born	9 May 1877 London, England
Died	12 October 1923 (aged 46)
Nationality	English
Occupation	Banker, entomologist
Spouse(s)	Rózsika von Wertheimstein ​ ​ (m. after 1907)​
Children	Miriam Rothschild Elizabeth Charlotte Rothschild Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild Pannonica Rothschild
Parent(s)	Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild Emma Louise von Rothschild

Family

A slide image of a female plague flea collected and described by Charles and his colleague Wollaston

Nathaniel "Charles" Rothschild was the son of Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, and Emma Rothschild (née von Rothschild), who were cousins and Jewish members of the Rothschilds banking clan. Charles predeceased his older brother Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (1868–1937), who died without issue. The peerage therefore passed to Charles's son Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild. Charles boarded at Harrow School, which he found somewhat traumatising for incidents of bullying on account of his religion.[1]

He worked as a partner in the family bank NM Rothschild and Sons in London. He went to Rothschild's Bank every morning; despite all his interest in science and in natural history, he never missed a day. He was also very interested in the gold refinery operated by Rothschild's, and invented a variety of devices for collecting gold, and working on gold from a scientific point of view. He also became Chairman of the Alliance Assurance Company.[2]

Career

Entomology

However, like his zoologist brother, he devoted much of his energies to entomology and natural history collecting. His enormous collection of some 260,000 fleas is now in the Rothschild Collection at the Natural History Museum; he described about 500 new flea species.[3] One of these, which he discovered and named, was the plague vector flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, also known as the oriental rat flea, which he collected at Shendi, Sudan, on an expedition in 1901, publishing his finding in 1903.[4]

Nature conservation

Today Rothschild is regarded as a pioneer of nature conservation in Britain, and is credited with establishing the UK's first nature reserve when he bought Wicken Fen, near Ely, in 1899.[5] Wicken Fen was presented to the National Trust but the Trust declined to take Woodwalton Fen, near Huntingdon, which Rothschild bought in 1910, and this wetland, now a National Nature Reserve, was kept as a private nature reserve.[6] During his lifetime he built and managed his estate at Ashton Wold[7] in Northamptonshire to maximise its suitability for wildlife, especially butterflies. He was concerned about the loss of wildlife habitats, and in 1912 set up the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves, the forerunner of The Wildlife Trusts partnership. In 1915 he produced "The Rothschild List",[8] a schedule of the best 284 wildlife sites in the country, some of which were purchased as nature reserves.[6]

Public service

As well as a Lieutenant of the City of London, Rothschild became a JP for the county of Northamptonshire in 1902.[9] He served as High Sheriff of Northamptonshire for 1905.[10]

Personal life

In 1907, Rothschild married Rózsika Edle von Wertheimstein (1870–1940), a descendant of an old Austrian-Jewish family that was ennobled long before the Rothschilds.[11] She was born in 1870 at Nagyvárad, Hungary (now the Romanian city of Oradea), the daughter of a retired army officer, Baron Alfred Edler von Wertheimstein. Alfred's sister Charlotte was married to Moritz von Königswarter.[12] Rózsika was one of seven children. She was a very beautiful woman with dark brown eyes. Each eye had a purple ring to it, and they could flicker strangely. She was also a voracious reader. Every day she would read a Hungarian newspaper, a German newspaper, an English newspaper, and quite often a French one, too. She read all the political articles in these papers. Rózsika had even been a champion lawn tennis player in Hungary.

After their marriage on 6 February 1907, they lived at Tring and in London. Rothschild, who worked in the family’s banking business, was a dedicated naturalist in his spare time: the young couple had met on a butterfly-collecting trip in the Carpathian Mountains. In the evening, they might go together to a concert or a dinner party, but he really preferred to sort out his butterflies. Together, they had four children:

• Miriam Louisa Rothschild (1908–2005), a zoologist
• Elizabeth Charlotte Rothschild (1909–1988), known as "Liberty"
• Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild (1910–1990), known as "Victor", 3rd Baron Rothschild.
• Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild (1913–1988), known as "Nica", a bebop jazz enthusiast and patroness of Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker

Suffering from encephalitis, in 1923 Rothschild committed suicide.[13] His suicide, when he was 46 years old, was a severe shock to his wife and four children. Rózsika died on 30 June 1940.[14]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Charles Rothschild

16. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (= 20, 24, 28) 8. Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild (= 14) 17. Gutle Schnapper (= 21, 25, 29) 4. Baron Lionel de Rothschild 18. Levy Barent Cohen (= 30) 9. Hannah Barent Cohen (= 15) 19. Lydia Diamantschleifer (= 31) 2. Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild 20. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (= 16, 24, 28) 10. Baron Carl Mayer von Rothschild (= 12) 21. Gutle Schnapper (= 17, 25, 29) 5. Baroness Charlotte von Rothschild 22. Moses Herz (= 26) 11. Adelheid Herz (= 13) 23. Clara Salomon (= 27) 1. Hon. Charles Rothschild 24. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (= 16, 20, 28) 12. Baron Carl Mayer von Rothschild (= 10) 25. Gutle Schnapper (= 17, 21, 29) 6. Baron Mayer Carl von Rothschild 26. Moses Herz (= 22) 13. Adelheid Herz (= 11) 27. Clara Salomon (= 23) 3. Baroness Emma von Rothschild 28. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (= 16, 20, 24) 14. Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild (= 8) 29. Gutle Schnapper (= 17, 21, 25) 7. Baroness Louise von Rothschild 30. Levy Barent Cohen (= 18) 15. Hannah Barent Cohen (= 9) 31. Lydia Diamantschleifer (= 19)

See also

• History of the Jews in England
• Rothschild banking family of England

References

Notes

1. Hannah Rothschild, "The Butterfly Effect", Bonhams Magazine, Spring 2009, page 21.
2. Who Was Who, 1916-1928. A and C Black. 1947. p. 1277.
3. "Siphonaptera collections". Natural History Museum, London. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
4. "Charles Rothschild". The Wildlife Trusts. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
5. "Charles Rothschild: The banker who changed the world for good". The Independent. 12 May 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
6. Barnes, Simon (2015). "Prophet and Loss". Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
7. Pevsner, Nikolaus (1961). The Buildings of England – Northamptonshire. London and New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 94–5. ISBN 978-0-300-09632-3.
8. "The Rothschild List: 1915-2015 A review 100 years on" (PDF). The Wildlife Trusts. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 March 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
9. Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1916. Kelly's. p. 1277.
10. "No. 27777". The London Gazette. 21 March 1905. p. 2179.
11. Fraenkel, Josef (1967). The Jews of Austria: Essays on their Life, History and Destruction. Vallentine, Mitchell. p. 103.
12. Drewes, Kai (2013). Jüdischer Adel: Nobilitierungen von Juden im Europa des 19. Jahrhunderts. Campus Verlag. p. 361. ISBN 9783593397757.
13. "Nathaniel (Charles) Rothschild (1877-1923)| Rothschild Family". family.rothschildarchive.org. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
14. https://www.rothschildarchive.org/genealogy/

Sources

• Rothschild, Miriam (1983) Dear Lord Rothschild ISBN 0-09-153740-1
• Reminiscences by Rozsika's daughter, Dame Miriam Rothschild, published in the Jewish Quarterly