the world of private banking

THE RISE OF tHE ROtHScHILDS 23
were drawn up only when the partnership agreement had to be revised. Incredibly,
parts of the London bank were still not using the double-entry system as late as
1915. 84 It would appear that each transaction was simply assessed on its own
merits and that, in the case of New Court, separate departments developed on a
distinctly haphazard basis. There was no regular scrutiny of overall performance
and the partners were often surprised by the results when they were drawn up.
Nor were the various offices run on especially rational lines. Staff continued to
be recruited from a relatively narrow pool – birth in the Frankfurt Judengasse
was always an advantage in James’s eyes – and were treated with paternalistic
generosity while being wholly excluded from executive decision-making. By the
standards of modern management consultancy, the London house was a nightmare,
though it was only after the First World War that contemporaries began to identify
organizational backwardness as a possible cause of relative decline. 85
Yet propelling the Rothschilds forward, despite these apparent handicaps, was
a set of simple but effective business ‘rules’. The first and most elementary was
that they worked extremely hard and put business first. In a revealing letter to a
recalcitrant French customer in 1802, Nathan asked: ‘Do you think that my Father
will sell . . . Goods upon his own bills . . . without Profit? You are quite mistaken,
my father’s Chimney will not smoke without Profit’. 86 Of all the five brothers,
Nathan inherited this trait in its most pronounced form. ‘All you ever write’,
complained Salomon wearily in 1815, ‘is pay this, pay that, send this, send that.’ 87
But Nathan gloried in his ascetic materialism:
I am writing to you giving my opinion, as it is my damned duty to write to you . . .
I am reading through your letters not just once but maybe a hundred times. You
can well imagine that yourself. After dinner I usually have nothing to do. I do not
read books, I do not play cards, I do not go to the theatre, my only pleasure is my
business and in this way I read Amschel’s, Salomon’s, James’s and Carl’s letters. 88
Even when he was in his seventies, Amschel’s working hours in Frankfurt were
from 8 am to 7 pm, six days a week. 89 Their youngest brother James had the same
approach. ‘I think of nothing else but business’, he assured Nathan. ‘If I attend a
society party, I go there to become acquainted with people who might be useful for
84
RAL, RFamFD/7A, Memorandum by Charles, 1915.
85
See R. Palin, Rothschild Relish (London, 1970).
86
RAL, I/218/36, Nathan to M.G. Gaudoit, Paris, 18 Aug. 1802; RAL, 1/218/36,
Nathan to M.G. Trenelle, 5 September.
87
RAL, XI/109/2/2/156, Salomon, Paris, to Nathan, London, 29 Oct. 1815.
88
RAL, T31/1/5, Nathan, London, to Amschel, Carl and James, 2 Jan. 1816. See also
RAL, T34/1, NMR 288, Nathan to Amschel, Frankfurt, 3 Jan. 1816.
89
RAL, T25/104/1/4/77, Anselm, Frankfurt, to Nat, Paris, 9 July 1841; RAL, T23/243,
XI/109/42/3/22, same to same, undated, 1842; RAL, T18/338, XI/109/47/1/70, Hannah,
Frankfurt, to Lionel, London, undated, 1844.