the world of private banking
the world of private banking
the world of private banking
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268<br />
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING<br />
shooting with <strong>the</strong> gamekeeper, riding, cruises on <strong>the</strong> family’s 800-ton yacht – it<br />
was a golden childhood marred only by anti-Semitic abuse when he was sent away<br />
to school. A round-<strong>the</strong>-<strong>world</strong> tour followed Cambridge, and in Auckland some<br />
spontaneous words about Hitler to a local journalist earned a parental rebuke:<br />
It has always been a tradition <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Rothschild family never to give interviews. I<br />
always refuse. I sometimes see <strong>the</strong> City Editors <strong>of</strong> The Times and Daily Telegraph<br />
and I talk to <strong>the</strong>m quite freely because <strong>the</strong>y know that if <strong>the</strong>y ever once quoted<br />
me, <strong>the</strong>y would never see me again...<br />
Soon after <strong>the</strong> war, just as he became a partner, Edmund was sent to New York<br />
for a period <strong>of</strong> training at <strong>the</strong> investment bank Kuhn Loeb. There <strong>the</strong> ‘drudgery’<br />
in <strong>the</strong> book-keeping, stock transfer and credit departments was bad enough, but<br />
<strong>the</strong> statistical department proved ‘even worse’, and ‘it soon dawned on me that <strong>the</strong><br />
nuts and bolts <strong>of</strong> <strong>banking</strong> were never going to be my greatest strength’. Nor <strong>the</strong>y<br />
were, though over <strong>the</strong> years Edmund provided valuable continuity at Rothschilds,<br />
especially after his uncle Anthony’s stroke in 1955, and he was good at ensuring<br />
a happy ship. Through <strong>the</strong> memoirs as a whole, <strong>the</strong>re is a sense <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> author<br />
moving comfortably enough through <strong>the</strong> upper reaches <strong>of</strong> British society – though<br />
relatively seldom perhaps <strong>the</strong> stratospheric heights, and with little sense <strong>of</strong> being<br />
near <strong>the</strong> political action <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> day. Domestic life in his Hampshire country-home<br />
during <strong>the</strong> 1950s and 1960s seems to have been resolutely middle-brow (tennis,<br />
croquet, Mickey Mouse film shows, mah-jongg, card games), consistent with <strong>the</strong><br />
almost entire absence in his book <strong>of</strong> ei<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> <strong>world</strong> <strong>of</strong> art, literature and ideas,<br />
or any sense <strong>of</strong> changes in British life and society, or indeed almost any reflection<br />
on even <strong>the</strong> City itself. A book for which <strong>the</strong> adjective ‘amiable’ might have been<br />
invented, and <strong>the</strong> only autobiography we have <strong>of</strong> a twentieth-century merchant<br />
banker born into <strong>the</strong> purple, it will be mined almost as much for what it does not<br />
say as for what it does. 16<br />
It was mid-way through Edmund de Rothschild’s career, in 1957, that <strong>the</strong>re<br />
occurred <strong>the</strong> celebrated Bank Rate ‘leak’ and ensuing tribunal. Powerful City<br />
figures like William Keswick <strong>of</strong> Ma<strong>the</strong>sons and Lord Kindersley and Oliver Poole<br />
<strong>of</strong> Lazards were acquitted <strong>of</strong> wrong-doing, but for <strong>the</strong> first time <strong>the</strong> City’s inner<br />
circle found itself subjected to public gaze and even mockery. Much was made<br />
<strong>of</strong> intimate links with Tory ministers and <strong>of</strong> decisions taken to sell gilts while<br />
grouse-shooting on <strong>the</strong> Scottish moors. 17 ‘We cannot defend a system’, declared<br />
<strong>the</strong> shadow Chancellor, Harold Wilson, in <strong>the</strong> Commons debate on <strong>the</strong> Tribunal,<br />
‘where merchant bankers are treated as <strong>the</strong> gentlemen and <strong>the</strong> clearing bankers<br />
as <strong>the</strong> players using <strong>the</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essionals’ gate out <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> pavilion.’ 18 A year later,<br />
16<br />
Edmund de Rothschild, A Gilt-Edged Life (London, 1998), including pp. 66, 133–4,<br />
220–1.<br />
17<br />
P. Ferris, The City (London, 1960), pp. 129–57.<br />
18<br />
Hansard, 3 Feb. 1958, col. 859.