Ferdinand de Rothschild

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild
Member of Parliament
for Aylesbury
In office
18 July 1885 – 17 December 1898
Preceded byNathan Rothschild
Succeeded byWalter Rothschild
Personal details
Born17 December 1839
Paris, France
Died17 December 1898 (aged 59)
Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, England
NationalityBritish
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1865)​
OccupationBanker

art collector and politician who was a member of the Rothschild family of bankers. He identified as a Liberal, later Liberal Unionist,[1] and sat as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1898. Ferdinand had a younger sister, Alice, who like her brother was a keen horticulturalist and collector. She inherited Ferdinand's property, Waddesdon Manor
, in 1898 after he died and likewise continued the tradition of using the house as a place to keep his collections.

Life and career

House of Commons

Although Ferdinand de Rothschild was born in Paris in 1839, he was from Vienna and was a member of the Rothschild banking family of Austria. He was the second son of Anselm Salomon Freiherr von Rothschild (1803–1874), a Vienna-based banker, and his English wife Charlotte Nathan Rothschild (1807–1859), daughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild.[2] Ferdinand's great-grandfather was Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

Although possessing the hereditary title of

Evelina Hospital for Sick Children in Southwark
, south London.

From 1868 to 1875, he became Treasurer of the Jewish Board of Guardians and Warden of the Central Synagogue in 1870.[4] During these roles, Ferdinand instigated an offer of £2,000 which ultimately led to the foundation of the Army Reservists' Home.[5]

In 1883, Ferdinand de Rothschild was

St George's in the East, but on being invited, he contested in 1885 another seat, at Aylesbury,[6] which he won and held until his death.[7] In 1886, over the issue of Irish Home Rule, he joined the Liberal Unionists and hosted meetings at Waddesdon Manor (where Joseph Chamberlain, Arthur Balfour and Lord Randolph Churchill were often guests) that led to the formation of the Unionist-Conservative alliance.[1]

From 1896, he was a Trustee of the British Museum, a role suggested by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks[8] and which led to his Renaissance collection being bequeathed to the British Museum after his death. This is now exhibited as the Waddesdon Bequest.

Ferdinand de Rothschild died at Waddesdon Manor on his 59th birthday, thought to be the result of a cold caught when last visiting his wife's tomb.

Jewish Cemetery at West Ham
.

Collecting

Waddesdon Manor was the weekend 'party house' of Ferdinand de Rothschild, where he entertained many famous and royal guests whilst showing off his diverse collections.

Fluent in three languages, and considered "as much at home in Paris as in London",[3] Ferdinand was an already inspired collector of eighteenth-century French decorative arts from his early twenties. For instance, when he was only 21 years old, his first purchase was made of one of the most ostentatious rococo Sèvres ship vases from the Louis XV era. His development into one of the most renowned collectors of the 19th century, even amongst the Rothschilds, is known by the abundance of family letters in which he is referred to as "curiosity-hunting... all over Europe".[3]

In the autumn of 1874, Ferdinand de Rothschild bought land in the village of

Chateau de Chambord.[10] He sought to 'revive the decoration of the eighteenth century in its purity, reconstructing the rooms out of old material, reproducing them as they had been during the reigns of Louis'.[11]

His collection of

National Trust
.

References

  1. ^ a b Roth, Cecil (1939). The Magnificent Rothschilds. Robert Hale. p. 197.
  2. ^ a b House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1886
  3. ^
    OCLC 695587648
    .
  4. doi:10.1093/jhc/13.2.191
  5. ^ The Magnificent Rothschilds. p. 198.
  6. ^ The Magnificent Rothschilds. p. 197.
  7. ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "A" (part 3)
  8. ^ Thornton (2015), 18-19, 53-54
  9. ^ The Magnificent Rothschilds. p. 192.
  10. ^ Seccombe 1901.
  11. ^ Schwartz, Selma (2000). Waddesdon: The Rothschild Collection Guide. National Trust Charity. p. 4.
  12. ^ Hall, Michael (2002). Waddesdon: The Biography of a Rothschild House. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 15.
  13. ^ Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, The Red Book (1897: Waddesdon Archives).

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ferdinand James von Rothschild.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Aylesbury
1885–1898
(representation reduced to one member 1885) 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ferdinand_de_Rothschild&oldid=1217830710"