the world of private banking

252
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
Investors would accept a return fixed at four per cent – a philanthropic gesture,
because a higher dividend could be expected from conventional investment.
Similar non-Jewish companies already existed, normally offering five per cent.
The Four Per Cent Company raised £20,000 within four days. Rothschild was
active in bringing about the design and building of the tenement blocks opened
in Spitalfields in 1887 as Charlotte de Rothschild Buildings. These eventually
accommodated 228 families. 22
These are just examples from a larger world of Jewish philanthropy that
has been described elsewhere 23 and is an important aspect of the philanthropic
activity of a prominent group of City men. Since a quantitative assessment of
the philanthropic contribution of such men – notably often working closely with
their wives – is impossible, the range and importance of their work is perhaps best
conveyed through biographical examples.
Baron and Baroness de Hirsch
Moritz von Hirsch (1831–96), later known as Maurice de Hirsch, was not primarily
active in the City of London, though he was an associate of Edward VII, but he
was an active, influential and immensely rich figure in international finance and
his career illustrates especially well how prodigious industry in the financial world
could be accompanied by prodigious philanthropic work, and how such activities
were not confined to Britain.
He was born in Munich, on 9 December 1831. His grandfather Jacob had
established the family as one of the first Jewish families to acquire great wealth
and social acceptability in Bavaria, becoming a court banker and substantial
landowner. His younger son Joseph (1805–85) carried on his business activities,
which became centred in Munich. Moritz was the third of Joseph’s ten children.
His mother, Karoline Wertheimer, came from an orthodox Frankfurt family and
ensured that the children were properly instructed in Jewish matters.
At age 13 Moritz was sent to Brussels for schooling, receiving, according
to his obituary in the Jewish Chronicle, a ‘plain but sound education’. At 17 he
joined the banking house of Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt in Brussels. He was
soon regarded as a financial genius, with a special interest in railway promotion.
Speculation in sugar and cotton shares also brought him rapidly accumulated wealth
and promotion. In 1855 he married Clara Bischoffsheim (1833–99), daughter of the
senior partner, Senator Jonathan Bischoffsheim. After his marriage, he moved to
Paris to join the board of the Paris branch of Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt. The
heads of the firm followed his speculations with a certain amount of trepidation
and refrained from making him a partner, though they allowed him to use the
22
Ibid., pp. 20–24.
23
Feldman, Englishmen; Lipman, A Century; L.P. Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in
England, 1870–1914 (London, 1960).