The Unexpected Story of Nathaniel Rothschild

INTRODUCTION

Nathaniel Mayer (‘Natty’), the first Lord Rothschild, ordered that his papers were to be destroyed after his death. For the most part, his wishes were carried out. Little of his vast correspondence survives, save for a journal kept by his mother, Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild, chronicling his development during his childhood, some letters to his parents while he was studying at Cambridge, some business and general correspondence with his French cousins in the Edwardian era and a small batch of miscellaneous letters. Chapter 1 shows how Natty developed into a sensitive and secretive young man so as to avoid the prying eyes of his hyper-critical mother, whom he loved very much, although he found it hard to win her praise. His penchant for revealing very little about himself, his private thoughts and inner passions, was reinforced when Disraeli chose him to be the junior executor of his estate. After the death of Lord Rowton (Montagu Corry), Disraeli’s literary executor, it became the duty of Sir Philip Rose to trawl through Natty’s hero’s extensive correspondence to vet it before unwelcome items were disclosed in an authorized biography of the Prime Minister by Monypenny and Buckle. To protect his reputation, the executors burnt Disraeli’s somewhat chaotic financial correspondence with the Rothschild family and kept hidden the fact that Disraeli had fathered two children, Ralph Nevill and Catherine Donovan, outside marriage. His co-executor had reminded Natty in the past that Disraeli’s will did not provide for an ‘infant beneficiary’, but that this child would have a good claim against the estate if an action were brought to claim an allowance. ¹

Nor was this the end of Natty’s troubles as an executor of Disraeli’s estate. On 8 October 1907, Francis Knollys, King Edward VII’s private secretary, wrote to him that ‘The King understands it is very probable that letters of a very confidential and family nature may have been written by the late Queen to Lord Beaconsfield between 1874 and 1880’, and requested that all such letters in Mr Monypenny’s possession should be sent to the King for him to look over. Highly embarrassed by the royal involvement in this affair, Natty related that after Disraeli’s death Sir Philip Rose

took charge of all Lord Beaconsfield’s papers and letters, examined them thoroughly and had them arranged in a somewhat perfunctory manner by his head clerk, Mr Scanes. This was absolutely necessary, as a good many legal documents had to be found and accounted for, and there were also a good many letters referring to incidents in the lives of Lord Lyndhurst, Colonel Stanley and others, which had to be separated from the mass of papers … I am writing this at full length to you so that both you and His Majesty should be aware that the various documents which I have in my possession were seen, and probably carefully examined, by many people before they were entrusted to me at New Court … [Monypenny] has just been here and has told me in which box the letters from Her Majesty the Queen to Lord Beaconsfield were carefully collected and put together, and I send them to you for His Majesty’s perusal. I am afraid it will take a very long time to read them and I shall be much obliged, when they have been read, if you will return them to me at New Court (as I only hold them as trustee of the Hughenden Estate), retaining those that do not refer to political affairs, if His Majesty should so think best to keep the strictly private letters.²

Knollys informed Natty that the King was ‘horrified to hear that these confidential & also some secret Family Papers should have been seen by Sir Philip Rose’s Head Clerk’s Brother, by Mr Moberley Bell and Mr Monypenny’. A few weeks later, he stated that the King ‘has kept, & proposes to destroy, the letters relating to Family matters’ and thought it ‘incredible that the late Queen could have been aware that the most sacred letters & papers relating to the Royal Family had been examined & in some instances annotated by Mr Scanes & his Brother, two men who were utterly unknown to her either personally or by repute’.³ Natty did his best to contain the King’s ire, denying that Moberley Bell had seen the correspondence. In a later letter, he thanked Knollys for returning the tin box which had contained the correspondence, continuing that he ‘had nothing to do with the Beaconsfield papers until they were brought here, arranged as you see them by Mr Skanes and his brother. Lord Rowton positively assured me that he had Her Majesty’s – the late Queen’s – permission for what took place and that he had, on various occasions, taken Mr Skanes down to Windsor to copy various letters’. He could give the King an assurance that he had never employed Scanes and had not even looked at the papers for more than two years.⁴ With this final flourish, Natty extracted himself from a situation fraught with snares, hoping that he had kept his long-standing friendship with Edward intact. Meanwhile he was even more determined than ever that none of the secrets of his own life should be exposed after his death, that neither his family, business nor his diplomatic secrets, would become the subject of everyday gossip. Hence, after these experiences and being secretive by nature, he arranged for the destruction of the bulk of his own correspondence.

Niall Ferguson, in his masterly study of the Rothschild Bank, has gone into great detail concerning Natty’s participation in general diplomacy, particularly his attempts to stop the Boer War and the outbreak of the First World War. So this biography, while not ignoring this past research, will shift its focus to Natty’s diplomatic moves to ameliorate the condition of Russian Jewry and to assess how successful he was. Before proceeding further, however, it became necessary in Chapter 2 to outline his training as a banker, his emergence as a country gentleman and an M.P., and his ennoblement as the first Jewish peer. Chapter 3 describes how the British government stabilized political and economic conditions in Egypt, following its purchase of shares in the Suez Canal Company with the assistance of the Bank and Baron Lionel de Rothschild, this also being an affair in which Natty was deeply involved; this in turn led to the British occupation of Egypt and the recruitment of British civil servants to sort out its finances due to the scale of British investment, thereby paving the way for a series of profitable Egyptian loans issued by the Rothschild Bank under Natty’s leadership. Natty and his brothers, growing more confident in their role as bankers, were persuaded to invest in the diamond and gold mines of South Africa. Thus, the sustained growth of the Rothschild Bank in the 1880s and 1890s coincided with a renewed period of expansion of the British Empire. At the time, Natty cooperated closely with British civil servants in the colonies, of whom the most outstanding was Alfred Milner. The British branch of the Bank reached a peak of prosperity at the end of the nineteenth century, when Baron Alphonse of the Paris house induced Natty to invest in the Rio Tinto copper mines in Spain; the British house made further gains in this sector, by securing a stake in a huge copper mine in Montana.

Without the prosperity of the British house of Rothschild, it would be difficult to explain Natty’s growing prestige as a diplomat, particularly insofar as the plight of the Jews in Russia was concerned. In a series of chapters, starting with Chapter 4, his role as a shtadlan (intercessor) is examined in great detail. His response to the first wave of pogroms in 1881 was uncertain, as none of the remedies he suggested seemed to work. A memorial presented to the Tsar was rejected, while other European leaders rebuffed his proposal for an international Jewish delegation to appeal personally to the Russian ruler. Much against his will, Natty, who preferred secret diplomacy through back-door channels, was forced to agree to a large public protest meeting. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law, Baron Alphonse, introduced a new strategy of boycotting state loans to Russia until concessions were wrung out of a recalcitrant government. When the Jews were expelled from Moscow and Kiev in 1890 and a fresh exodus of Jews began from Russia, the Lord Mayor of London summoned a public protest meeting. This was boycotted by Natty and the Paris house refused to go ahead with a new state loan to Russia. A key role in this refusal was attributed to Natty’s pressure on Alphonse, but whatever the truth of the matter he now ennobled as Lord Rothschild emerged from the scene with enhanced prestige and was now a significant player on the international scene. Chapter 5 describes the persistence with which Theodor Herzl sought Natty’s help in the establishment of a Jewish colony in Palestine or close to its borders or even way beyond its borders in Uganda, since Natty enjoyed such excellent relations with the Imperial wing of the British government.

Because a Jewish colony in Palestine was seen as an alternative to the United States and Argentina as a destination for emigrant Russian Jewry, Herzl gave evidence before the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration; this leads, in the chapter, to a discussion of Natty’s role as a member of the Commission and the implementation of the Aliens Act.

Chapter 6 continues to discuss Natty’s policy towards the Tsarist regime, preceded by his activities on behalf of Jewish communities in Persia, Morocco and Romania, in order to assess the success of such interventions. This is followed by a more detailed account of Natty’s role at the time of the Kishinev pogrom and the widespread violence against the Jews in Eastern Europe in 1905–6 which caused casualties on a much larger scale than the earlier pogroms of the 1880s. Even if Natty had become the titular head of world Jewry at the time of these disturbances in Russia and assisted the relief operations, the question has to be asked as to how effective his leadership was then and in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

In Chapter 7, Natty’s role as a philanthropist is examined in an attempt made to assess the scale of his beneficence and also to focus on the charities on which he lavished his time and energy. Proud of his role as a model benefactor, Natty believed that the state should play a minimal role in the provision of social services, though he gradually became aware that the Liberal government was moving in the opposite direction. As a leader of City opinion, he led the opposition to the Licensing Bill which he saw as an attack on the property-owning classes and to the 1909 Budget, emerging from the campaign which is dealt with in the following chapter, in which he is shown as a national, if somewhat reviled figure. Chapter 9 is a discussion of how Natty’s role as an intercessor lost much of its significance when a final effort on behalf of Russian Jewry failed in 1908. Control of the Anglo-Jewry’s ‘foreign policy’ was wrested by Lucien Wolf both from the Conjoint Committee of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Board of Deputies as well as from Lord Rothschild himself. The final chapter reveals why Natty’s popularity remained at a low ebb before 1914, but experienced a dramatic recovery at the onset of the Great War when he cast aside personal interests and, as Chairman of the Council of the British Red Cross, collected over half a million pounds on behalf of the wounded soldiers and became an advocate of higher taxation that impacted heavily on the wealthy.

Notes

1Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli: A Biography (New York, 1993), pp. 427–36. Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 47 (Oxford, 2004), p. 767, Sir Philip Frederick Rose.

2RA,VIC MAIN/W/41/5 Lord Knollys to Natty 8 October 1907; VIC MAIN/X/33/336 Natty to Lord Knollys 31 October 1907.

34 and 24 November 1907.

4RA, VIC/MAIN/x/33/342 Natty to Knollys 25 November 1907.

1

THE EDUCATION OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN

Hannah Rothschild, travelling on the Continent to attend her son Lionel’s wedding to his cousin wrote a note to her younger son, Nat, who had been left in charge of the family bank in London. She asked him to order some choice items from Gunter’s, the famous pastrycooks, and to ship them with some grapes for the wedding in Frankfurt. Mrs Rothschild journeyed at a slow pace because her husband, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, a financial genius who had forged the pre-eminence of the Rothschild Bank in London, had fallen ill with a painful abscess on his buttocks. ¹

On 13 June 1836, two days after her seventeenth birthday, Charlotte married her cousin Lionel, some ten years her senior, and moved from Frankfurt to a new life in England. Although she was brought up for the first eight years or more of her life in Naples, where her father Carl von Rothschild was based, Charlotte and her three younger brothers, Mayer Carl, Adolph and Wilhelm Carl, were educated in Germany at the insistence of her father.² Shortly after their wedding, Nathan Mayer Rothschild died and Lionel, with his mother and brothers, sat shivah – the traditional week-long Jewish mourning period – for his father. It was a depressing start to a marriage.

The mourning was to continue for a year, with lesser restrictions. Quickly, Lionel and his brothers became preoccupied with reviving the fortunes of the Rothschild Bank in London, leaving Charlotte isolated for long, tedious parts of the day, without the company of her family and friends in Germany. ‘I felt my life to be gloomy because it was spent in England in the land & city of fogs’, Charlotte remembered,

because I missed the bright skies of other climes, the more exhilarating air of other countries, because I allowed the dense atmosphere of the metropolis to weigh down my spirits, which had been buoyant, because I was far away from my [adoring] parents, [affectionate] brothers and friends, because I knew no one in this large metropolis save those who seem so much engrossed by their own painful feelings & regrets [meaning her mother-in-law Hannah and family] to bestow indulgent thoughts on the stranger.³

Although the young couple were in love, ‘with many a fond look and kiss from dimpled lips and brilliant eye’, Lionel had little time to spare for his beautiful wife. Sexually experienced at the time of his marriage, he had had a brief liaison with a Spanish lady friend.⁴ His marriage was, therefore, as much dynastic as a love match. He and his brothers busied themselves at the family bank, N. M. Rothschild & Sons, dealing with the falling price of British government securities and the stock crisis in the American market, which led the bank to register a loss at the end of the year. He ‘was never with me between the hours of ten in the morning & 6 in the evening. Oh! Why did I waste those hours in vain regrets, in tears?’ Charlotte recalled. ‘Why did I not then ardently and assiduously apply [myself] to study? Possibly that would have dried my tears and made my thoughts flow into pleasant and profitable channels. I could have accomplished much in those days, when if I had no joys, I also had few cares, and domestic duties to fulfil’.⁵ Charlotte, who had received a thorough grounding in English and French – besides the German which she already spoke – to prepare her for marriage to a kinsman from another branch of the family, enjoyed intellectual stimulation and was later to correspond with Gladstone on matters of theology.

From this welter of gloom and depression, Charlotte was lifted by the birth of her first child, her eldest daughter Leonora (Laury) on 25 August 1837. Her arrival was greeted by Charlotte in ecstatic terms: ‘My eldest child one whose birth was happiness so exquisite to me, felicity so perfect, bliss so unexpectedly great that the moments which followed her appearance in this world of joys and cares, sweep away at once all recollection of past sufferings, of moral anxiety & anguish, of physical pain & fatigue.’ Her bliss was punctured a month later, when Hannah Mayer Rothschild tactlessly described the baby as looking ‘like a frog or a toad’, causing a fresh flow of tears on Charlotte’s part.⁶

Towards the end of 1836, Lionel and Charlotte began living in their new home at 148 Piccadilly; here she filled her hours with a house to manage and a baby to nurse and probably felt more contented.⁷ However, when Charlotte gave birth to a second daughter, Evelina, in 1839, she admitted that though the birth was ‘less painful’, it was ‘followed by less intense joy than Laury’s arrival. Perhaps I was disappointed in not having a son’. But

Her father [Lionel] was not in the room at the time she made her appearance in this world … He was neither glad nor sore to hear of her arrival, and thought her rather plain than otherwise when he condescended to look at her tiny face. As she was my second child and only a girl, no one thought much of her, and she passed through the earlier months & years of infancy unnoticed except by me.⁸

Then, on 8 November 1840, Charlotte gave birth to a son, Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, followed by two more sons, Alfred born in 1842 and Leopold in 1845. To his mother Charlotte, a bookish, tall, beautiful woman with pronounced feminist opinions and confident in the merits of her own sex, Natty’s birth was welcomed with reservations. Despite being born a Rothschild, she could not quite share her husband’s dynastic concerns, and as a feminist resented her own neglect by Lionel and his lack of enthusiasm for their daughters. In contrast to her effusive welcome for Leonora, she greeted Natty’s arrival in a niggardly and somewhat mean manner, directing some of her pent-up resentment and frustration at her young son. Charlotte reluctantly admitted:

My eldest son Nathaniel was … a thin ugly baby but that did not signify, he was a boy and as such most welcome to his father & the whole family. I never could prefer him to his sisters. I nursed him not so well as he ought to have been nursed for he was a ugly child, and I was not a robust mother, could not give him nourishment enough. During his infancy he remained most delicate, and at times gave me great uneasiness. The nursing process fatigued him, and later he caught measles, the chickenpox and other infantine fevers which weakened him very much and kept him back in every respect. Now he is eight years & half old, tall and slight for his age being handsome & distinguished looking in repose but not graceful walking, reclining or dancing and also less good looking when speaking than when sitting.⁹

Charlotte was, perhaps, too objective, too clinical in her assessment, lacking in maternal warmth. Exposed to a lack of warmth from his mother, Natty was a shy child, who withdrew into himself, and quickly learnt to conceal his inner thoughts and feelings from others. Although inept in company, Charlotte conceded in 1849 that Natty

is really amiable, that is to say mild, gentle, kind to all around him & most affectionately devoted to his father and brothers & sisters but he lacks cordiality & frankness, he is reserved & shy and not generous; in fact, he is the only one of my children fond of money for the sake of hoarding it.¹⁰

His redeeming feature was his devotion to his father and his excellent relations with his siblings which gradually gave him the confidence, as the eldest son, to assume, in the course of time, the leadership of the family. On the other hand, Charlotte complained that although her two daughters

share[d] the same rooms, the same studies, the same pleasures, have the same teachers, are even dressed alike, they do not experience those feelings of deep & devoted sisterly affection which would add so much to their happiness throughout life … It but seldom happens that Laury consents to share the amusements of her brothers & sister.

As for Natty, Charlotte’s catalogue of criticisms continued. He was ‘constitutionally indolent and does not learn with great rapidity or facility’, even though she admitted that he had an excellent memory for ‘names, facts, events & even dates’. Nevertheless, he was ‘extremely fond of reading’, which would give him the basis for becoming a cultured gentleman.¹¹

A year later Charlotte quoted an assessment of Natty’s character and accomplishments by his tutor which was similar to her own.

Master N. Is very kindhearted & benevolent … [He] venerates what is great & good and is gentlemanly in his feelings. He has not much self-esteem but he is fond of praise. A little vain, a little peevish but not often violent – Generally acts up to the dictates of conscience but he must avoid the temptations of bad companions – No fighter he can conceal his thoughts & feelings and is rather sly … He has a great deal of imagination and is fond of the sublime & beautiful in nature and in fiction – Fond of order. Not mathematical but he must practise arithmetic! Fine talents for history and miscellaneous information. He has a good memory … [no] talent for music. Not mechanical – Fine taste for drama & for astronomy. He has good talents for learning languages and can appreciate their beauties – this remark applies more to foreign languages than to the classics … The reflective faculties are, at present, only moderate. Everything must be adapted by a sensible teacher to bring out’ how he judges the matter.¹²

Charlotte noted that her eldest son was making some progress. Natty ‘certainly writes German better than he did … he speaks it more fluently and I can say the same with respect to his French and English’. At the close of 1850 she added that Natty ‘is thought handsome and gentlemanlike looking but remains less prepossessing than Alfred owing to his shyness & reserve. His memory remains very good and his teachers are satisfied with him … He writes English, German & Hebrew with great difficulty and very slowly indeed’. Next year, at the age of ten, he was ‘to begin Mathematics & Greek’. As always with Charlotte, there was some positive comment counter-balanced by a cutting assessment of Natty’s character and prospects. ‘I find him more talkative & ambitious than he was,’ Charlotte confided to her notebook, ‘he also expresses himself better than he did and speaks both French & German more fluently. I do not think he will ever be a clever man, but I hope he will become a cultivated well-informed one, a useful member of society.’ On 3 September 1851, she regretfully noted that ‘I wish I could say that much improvement has taken place [since last December]. I will not, must not give way to illusions.’ Charlotte was not satisfied that their tutor had ‘brought the children sufficiently forward and … [she was] determined to give them to a new one.’¹³

When he was twelve, Natty started to mature and grow in confidence, basking in the warmth and appreciation of his father and the wider family and, at the same time, realizing that as the eldest son and heir he had opportunities as well as responsibilities. At the end of 1853, Natty would celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, that is, he would become an adult in Jewish law. This goal allowed him to focus his efforts more carefully and utilize his talents to achieve more creditable educational results. On 4 January 1854, Charlotte happily declared that

A whole year has elapsed since last I opened this little book and I have thank God nothing to chronicle but what is satisfactory. Natty being shy & nervous is not appreciated in Society … [But he] succeeded in rousing his dormant ambition, & overcoming his constitutional indolence. His confirmation for which he laboured & studied most conscientiously proved the sincerity of his zeal and by application to his German lessons he made rapid progress. This autumn I trust he may improve in the French language and that he will ere long be able to express himself better in English, both verbally and pen in hand.¹⁴

In 1853, Dr Marcus Moritz Kalisch (1828–85), having studied at Berlin University and a rabbinical college, joined Baron Lionel’s household at Gunnersbury, in order to tutor the Rothschild children in Hebrew; and here, where he became a much loved member of the family, he enjoyed the leisure to produce his acclaimed commentaries on the Bible. Natty on one occasion ‘informed us’, his cousin Annie noted, ‘that Dr Kalisch was at home so we three set out in the dark, well cloaked and bonneted to see him. We found him in his funny little low room in his dressing-gown. We all went in and Evy and Natty began to talk the most absurd nonsense …’, which shows another side to Natty than the solemn little boy portrayed by his mother.¹⁵ In all probability Dr Kalisch was engaged to coach Natty for his Bar Mitzvah and the sudden improvement in his German may perhaps be attributed to his new tutor’s influence. Under the heading ‘Confirmation at the Great Synagogue’, which stood in Duke’s Place, London, the Jewish Chronicle reported that

On Sabbath morning last [19 November 1853], the eldest son of Baron de Rothschild M.P., having attained the age of thirteen years, was called to the reading-desk, during the Reading of the Holy Law, and read a portion, according to the custom on such occasions. The amount of offerings on the occasion was about 130L. The Baroness being in the twelve months’ mourning for her mother, the event was celebrated in the mere family circle, but ever watchful to do good when and where good can be done, the Baroness has determined to apprentice as many poor boys (13) as was the age of her son.¹⁶

At the same time, Natty’s growing maturity and new sense of responsibility is demonstrated by the admonitions contained in the greetings to his younger brother Leopold on the occasion of his eighth birthday, although the letter is also suffused with fraternal warmth.

Many happy returns on your birthday dearest Leopold. I wish you may always be happy, good and wise. You are now entering your eighth year and I hope you will turn over a new leaf and be very attentive to your lessons and good towards all your teachers. Your brother who loves you very much & hopes you will improve. Natty de Rothschild.¹⁷

Natty was fast absorbing some of his mother’s conscientiousness and perfectionist streak. Nor was this altogether surprising, as Natty and his slightly younger brother Alfred were subjected to a strict tutorial regime. Alfred seems to have been bright but lazy. For the period 1852–3 a journal survives in which the two boys’ daily lessons were recorded by a tutor with the marks allotted and comments added if they fell below the standard expected. Thus, on Monday 21 June 1852 Natty was studying French, German, Arithmetic, Latin Grammar, Latin translation, and doing exercises in the same language. The comment was that ‘There are good marks for Lat [in] Translat [ion] and French, but only half marks for Arith[metic]’. On the same day for Alfred it was recorded that ‘For French there is a very bad account; for Music very good. For Latin a good one’. What is certain is that Natty continued to benefit from private tuition at home and Niall Ferguson’s suggestion that he attended a gymnasium in Frankfurt for three years must be discounted. It appears to arise from a confusion between Natty and his Frankfurt namesake Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, who was born in 1836. The other surprising feature of the journal was that both Natty and Alfred continued their secular educational studies on a Saturday including an arithmetic lesson which must have involved writing and thus not even a minimal attempt at observance of the Sabbath.¹⁸

As he advanced through the years of adolescence, Natty made progress in his studies and Charlotte reported in 1855 that he was interested

in a variety of things & pursuits; in business & in politics, in curiosities of every kind & sort, in farming, in the cultivation of fruit, flowers & vegetables. He reads diligently and likes both history & poetry. He is studying botany, and wishes to resume his drawing lessons, which I am delighted to hear … He improves I am told in his Latin & mathematical studies & knows arithmetic well, also history but is less quick than Alfred … He rides better than he did and has a beautiful handwriting.¹⁹

A year later, Charlotte asserted that

Natty continued to take great interest in botany, agriculture, the natural history of domestic animals … He talks to the cook of the price of provisions … the arrangement and management of the stables & of the farm – the kitchen garden – the orchard, the greenhouses claim his attention and he understands all these matters perfectly well.

Accordingly, Natty was not only being trained for a career in the bank with the emphasis on arithmetic and fluency in French and German to carry out financial transactions with his Rothschild relatives without unnecessary glitches, but he was being prepared to oversee the management of a great estate, to live the life of a country gentleman. Even so, ‘He was a less good linguist than his brothers.’ Natty was

careful of money, economical even as regards himself but kind & charitable without any ostentation … he has endeavoured to overcome his shyness, and has yielded to his father’s wishes in trying to make speeches on given subjects. I must say that his speeches though not so well delivered as Alfy’s have been remarkably good.

He was thus being groomed by his father, on whom he still doted, for a career in public life as a leader of the Jewish community and hopefully – when emancipation came – as an M.P. Charlotte concluded that ‘what maternal zeal can do shall be done’, rightly understanding that ‘Scolding is of no use – perseverance will I trust overcome difficulties.’ All this was a very rigorous and effective educational programme, despite Charlotte’s doubts and interruptions to her plans for her children’s tuition, which would gain Natty admission to Cambridge and prepare him for the wider world.²⁰

Charlotte remained solicitous and more than a trifle anxious about Natty’s studies before he went to university, writing to Leo that ‘dear Natty is laboriously, but I hope, successfully solving problems, which to my dull brain prove terrible stumbling blocks … Juliana has most kindly invited me to dine in Piccadilly tomorrow, but I do not like to leave Natty alone, and, he, you know, cannot quit his books.’ Even if she could not be as loving towards him as the genial Leo, the youngest in the family, she was nevertheless a dutiful and caring mother. A few years later she reminded Leo not to ‘forget to congratulate Natty, who attains his majority on the 8th … and, if you can, send him a letter worthy of the occasion, of him, and of yourself’.²¹

In October 1859 Natty went up to Trinity College Cambridge, probably to study Mathematics rather than Moral Science, a subject which then embraced moral philosophy, political economy, modern history, general jurisprudence and the laws of England.²² Not being entitled to the exemption then granted to aristocrats, Natty had to sit for an examination known as the ‘Little Go’, which was taken at the end of the fifth term. This preliminary examination had a strong mathematical content, so that entrants had to master various books of Euclid, elementary algebra and mechanics as well as Latin and Greek set texts, including one of the Gospels in Greek, and an anti-Deist tract, William Paley’s Evidences of Christianity.²³ Having emerged from a very structured form of education at home, Natty took his studies seriously and soon settled into a disciplined and somewhat strenuous routine. Writing to his family during his stay in Cambridge, Natty described how he spent his day as follows:

I breakfast every morning at 8 and work in my rooms till 11 from which time till 2 I am engaged with the College lectures & Wright [his coach], 2–4 is devoted to exercise 4–5 to dinner 5–6 to the Times and letter writing 6–7 to Wright, 7–8 to sleep 8–1 to Paley and Sophocles, and in order to accomplish the last named fact I have taken to drinking strong Green tea, except on Saturday nights when I take more sleep and read the weekly newspaper. Baillie comes to breakfast in the morning and Wood, Fitzwilliam, Bourke, Fletcher & Henniker to dinner at 4, except when out with the Drag [hounds] or in the Hall.²⁴

A drag is a scent laid by an attendant prior to the hunt, not the ‘scent of a live fox or hare’.²⁵ On another occasion, he told his parents that he did

not care much about the Greek but like the Greek history connected with the time very much. Till now the [George] Grote has not made its appearance. I shall only want the XI & XII volumes [of the History of Greece] which I suppose I must read … I am at present engaged in reading Todhunter’s Trigonometry, and so far as it goes is amusing and easy that is for a book on mathematics.²⁶

Such a hectic and sustained work pattern without a period in the afternoon set aside for relaxation could not be endured for long and soon Natty was explaining to his parents why he had varied it, by giving more time to exercise and outdoor activities, as well as the Amateur Dramatic Club. He complained about

the complete misconception you have of what is conducive to my work and health here; last year I followed your advice and took no tiring exercises of any kind. My work did not improve; on the contrary grew gradually worse and my condition and health suffered materially as my feeble efforts in the hunting field during the vacation showed. I have found by experience that in order to get on here at all it is absolutely necessary to take 2 hours at least of violent exercise per diem, so that if I do not go with the drag [hounds] I must do something else in the same way, but as riding after hounds for a short time suits my taste better than being knocked down at football by Bob Lang or Sir G[eorge] Young than rowing in a bad boat or following the foot drag unless I have your positive commands to the contrary [I shall follow this pursuit], and all the more particularly as I see in those who read hard take far more exercise than I do.²⁷

After enduring some more criticism from his parents when he became stage manager of the Amateur Dramatic Club, Natty protested that

The ADC takes up some time, but I have found I do not one bit more if I do nothing but work and only destroy my health, and make the life here a curse and plague, in addition to which, I have very little to do with the theatricals whilst some of the actors will be in for the Little Go at the time and three or four are men likely to take high honours.²⁸

Natty struggled hard to pass this preliminary examination, telling his parents in the spring of 1861 that ‘Half of the University are busy with approaching examinations … I was rather sorry to see that you had mentioned the Little Go in the Metropolis as it is more than doubtful if I shall get through.’ Once plunged into the examination, Natty told his parents that ‘I am by no means sanguine about the result of Little Go, as the worst part is to come and I fully expect to get plucked, at all events to run a very close race.’ But gradually, as he became immersed in the examination, his confidence grew and he reported to his parents that

yesterday morning I went in for the first time and as we were examined in the highest branch of mathematics I stayed in the necessary time … hitherto I have done pretty well in the Gospel viva voce and in solid Geometry and as I shall be able to do something tomorrow and on Friday, I suppose I shall get through.

His forecast proved to be accurate and he did pass the Little Go examination.²⁹

Natty, as a Jew, did not find life in Cambridge entirely congenial. First there was the compulsory attendance at chapel, even if at times he was allowed to restrict it to a bare minimum. His tutor Joseph Lightfoot ‘promised to do all he can about Chapel but at present [William] Whewell [Master of the College] is the stumbling block in the way of reform’. Sydney Smith quipped about Whewell that science was his forte and omniscience his failing, so the Master was prepared to grant Natty little leeway. Nevertheless, Natty advised his parents in 1862 that

The Trinity Dons have just made themselves very unpopular by threatening to gate everyone who refuses to take the sacrament in Chapel; the consequence of this new rule is that a very large number absented themselves from chapel today; and will get into trouble for breaking an important college rule.³⁰

Then he had to regurgitate the turgid arguments of William Paley’s Evidences of Christianity. At the beginning of 1861, Natty informed his parents that

I have been trying my hand at Sophocles and Paley, I never was very successful in the former line and the Evidences of Christianity are the most absurd conglomeration of words I ever broke my head over, so that there is no danger of my being converted as many up here have prophesied.³¹

Reflecting on the situation, Natty asserted that:

In order to effect anything in the way of reform here [in Cambridge], it will be necessary to wait some time for as long as the universities are looked upon as seminaries for the Church of England, or as part of the established church itself, it will be impossible to do anything more for dissenters … Each college is allowed to regulate for herself and to refuse admittance to anyone they may object to … but what certainly ought to be done away with is the necessity to take orders after seven years or the total abandonment of the fellowship … it is very hard for a conscientious individual … to be deprived of his fellowship, because he will not declare himself a member of the Church of England. I never could see why a national institution like this which is the stepping stone to legal and political preferments as well as ecclesiastical ones should be ruled by priests as if it were a Jesuit’s seminary or a Talmudical school.³²

Natty in his early days at the university was also upset by an anti-Semitic speech in the Cambridge Union, telling his parents that

My blood boiled with rage when he [the speaker] quoted as a solitary instance of the too great power of the House of Commons the passing of the Jew Bill. I had hoped that the day was gone by for all distinctions of this kind and if I had spoken at once I might have aroused religious passions, not so easy to quell as arouse.³³

So too, Natty’s brother Leo, on a visit to a friend at Worcester College Oxford, recalled a dinner party, mostly consisting of clergymen and college fellows, where the conversation was ‘very shoppy and turned to ‘the mysteries of theology of various doxies, until at last I was so puzzled that I did not dare to open my lips’.³⁴ His friend feared ‘That they might forget my presence & make some attack upon the Jews!’ Fortunately such incidents were uncommon, even if the close relationship between the Church of England and the ancient universities made Jewish students sometimes feel unwelcome. As has been mentioned, Natty’s religious mentor was Dr M. M. Kalisch, a truly remarkable figure in Victorian Anglo-Jewry. Before taking up his appointment as religious instructor to the wider Rothschild family, he had been the Chief Rabbi’s secretary. On Passover in Lionel’s home, where the multifarious members of the Rothschild family assembled, Dr Kalisch presided over the Seder service.³⁵ From his pen flowed commentaries on the Bible which at first were in the traditional mode but later included a two-part treatise on the Book of Leviticus, in which he argued that the priesthood and sacrificial cult should be dated to the post-Exilic period, thus anticipating the Higher Critical theories of Wellhausen.³⁶ From time to time, Dr Kalisch visited Natty to give him some form of religious instruction. ‘I expect to see Alfred and the Doctor down here on that occasion’, Natty told his parents, when referring to some new productions envisaged by the Amateur Dramatic Club. ‘I will be killing two birds at one throw, as I am sure Trinity expects my religious instructor to make his appearance periodically’.³⁷ When on a vacation study session with William Aldis Wright, his mathematics coach at Scarborough, Natty declared that ‘Mr Wright is anxiously looking forward to a Hebrew conversation with the little Dr’, who was coming on a visit. On another occasion in 1862 he told his parents that Wright went ‘the round of the Professors here [in Cambridge] and has mentioned … Doctor … [Kalisch’s Hebrew] grammar. Wright thinks it would be advisable to present the 6 professors with a copy of the grammar.’³⁸ It is clear that Dr Kalisch’s tuition strengthened Natty’s commitment to his Jewish faith, so that he was not unduly worried by confronting an interlocutor with missionary intentions. ‘I have just been interrupted by the master of the British & Foreign schools’, he reported to his parents,

who called about a little Jew boy and not content with obtaining an audience for his protégé inflicted me with his own presence for an hour expatiating on the Hebrew language & other subjects in which I flatter myself, I floored him completely.³⁹

Natty was in any case brought up in a traditional Jewish manner, even if this was interpreted in a very loose way. According to Stanley Weintraub, Charlotte was reluctant to dine at venues at which non-kosher food was served, but did so, a fact which indicates that there must have been a minimal observance of the dietary code in her own home.⁴⁰ On the other hand, Charlotte, when referring to Wilhelm Carl’s daughters’ kosher diet remarked that ‘To eat as they