Nathan Mayer Rothschild Passes Away

Today in Masonic History Nathan Mayer Rothschild passes away in 1836.

Nathan Mayer Rothschild is a German banker and businessman.

Rothschild was born on September 16th, 1777 in Frankfurt, Germany. At the age of 21, he settled in Manchester, England. There he established a textile trading and financing company. In 1804, he moved to London, England to begin trading on the London Stock Exchange.

Starting in 1809, Rothschild began to deal in gold bullion. In 1811, he negotiated a deal to begin paying Wellington's troops as they fought Napolean in Portugal and Spain.

It was claimed Rothschild had agents monitoring the battle at Waterloo and they brought word back to him in England before anyone else had the news. The claim was he used the information to manipulate the market to make his fortune. The story has many holes in it and many feel it was made up. The original appeared in a 1846 French anti-semitic pamphlet and was expanded on further by several other sources. One of the bigger issues with the claim was Rothschild made One Million Pounds from the information, the bond market on the London Exchange at the time could not have supported such a gain.

In 1818, Rothschild was elevated to the noble status of baron (Freiherr), although he chose never to use it. Also in 1818, Rothschild made a 5 million Pound loan to the Prussian government.

Rothschild was an abolitionist and used his financial position to end the slave trade. In 2009 a claim surfaced stating he had dealings with a plantation owner who used slave's as collateral. This was denied by the still existing Rothschild bank. In part they said Rothschild had been a prominent civil liberties campaigner with many like-minded associates and "against this background, these allegations appear inconsistent and misrepresent the ethos of the man and his business."

Rothschild passed away from an infected abscess on July 28th, 1836. At the time of his passing, he had a personal net worth of 0.62% of the British national income.

Rothschild was a member of Emulation Lodge No. 12 in London, England.

This article provided by Brother Eric C. Steele.