the world of private banking
the world of private banking
the world of private banking
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THE ROtHScHILD ARcHIVE 33<br />
most prized survivals, <strong>the</strong> so-called Cotton Book, a sample book used by Nathan<br />
Mayer when travelling, to display textile samples to his clients and take orders,<br />
from which he commissioned suppliers in and around Manchester.<br />
From <strong>the</strong> beginning <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>banking</strong> years in London, <strong>the</strong>re is a very wide-ranging<br />
archive which continues through to <strong>the</strong> present day. I cannot say comprehensive – I<br />
wish I could – because <strong>the</strong> process <strong>of</strong> steady and efficient storage <strong>of</strong> papers for<br />
evidential purposes within <strong>the</strong> business has, across two centuries, been tempered<br />
by periodic and deliberate phases <strong>of</strong> destruction. Both <strong>the</strong> second and third heads <strong>of</strong><br />
N.M. Rothschild & Sons (NMR), Baron Lionel and Natty, <strong>the</strong> first Lord Rothschild,<br />
required <strong>the</strong>ir executors to destroy all personal papers from <strong>the</strong>ir years <strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong>fice<br />
that were held on <strong>the</strong> bank’s premises, setting a family tradition which has been<br />
honoured all too frequently for an archivist’s taste. These purges have not, it has<br />
to be said, affected <strong>the</strong> routine correspondence and files <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Bank; only those<br />
clutches <strong>of</strong> documents which arrived on and emanated from <strong>the</strong>ir own personal<br />
desks. Never<strong>the</strong>less, as you will recognize, <strong>the</strong>se are precisely <strong>the</strong> sources which<br />
historians would most have wished to survive. It is a matter <strong>of</strong> daily regret to us –<br />
though tempered by <strong>the</strong> sheer volume and quantity <strong>of</strong> what remains. This last point<br />
indicates <strong>the</strong> peculiar quality <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Rothschild <strong>banking</strong> archive – its intermixture<br />
<strong>of</strong> personal and business papers. This <strong>of</strong> course is far from unique, but given <strong>the</strong><br />
widespread involvements <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Rothschild family across two centuries, it gives to<br />
<strong>the</strong> archive its particular richness and diversity. For <strong>the</strong> members <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Rothschild<br />
family in London, <strong>the</strong> Bank was an extension <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir study at home as well as a<br />
place <strong>of</strong> <strong>banking</strong> business. When <strong>the</strong> cause was right, <strong>the</strong> <strong>of</strong>fices at New Court<br />
were put to use without hesitation. So, for example, <strong>the</strong>re survives, from <strong>the</strong> 1930s,<br />
a valuable body <strong>of</strong> paperwork relating to <strong>the</strong> Central British Fund for German<br />
Jewry, a body set up by Lionel and Anthony de Rothschild in <strong>the</strong> early 1930s and<br />
functioning from New Court in order to find employment for Jewish refugees from<br />
<strong>the</strong> Nazi regime. In a totally different vein, from earlier on, <strong>the</strong>re survive, from<br />
<strong>the</strong> Estates Department <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Bank, housed in New Court and handling property<br />
management and <strong>private</strong> accounts on behalf <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> partners, papers relating, for<br />
example, to <strong>the</strong> purchase <strong>of</strong> plants and seeds for <strong>the</strong> gardens <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Rothschilds’<br />
first substantial country house, Gunnersbury; building accounts for more than one<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> later great houses; and records <strong>of</strong> purchases <strong>of</strong> jewellery and paintings. All<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se are sought after by social historians <strong>of</strong> many shapes and persuasions.<br />
Most importantly, this mixture <strong>of</strong> business and social is embodied in <strong>the</strong> letters<br />
which each <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> bro<strong>the</strong>rs wrote to <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>rs (and to <strong>the</strong>ir nephews) in <strong>the</strong> years<br />
between 1814 and <strong>the</strong> death <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> last <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m in 1868. It is <strong>the</strong>se letters which<br />
form <strong>the</strong> richest material for historians – or ra<strong>the</strong>r, will form <strong>the</strong> most fertile<br />
seedbed in years to come. The letters have a quality all <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir own. There are<br />
some 20,000 letters surviving in this series. Written mostly in Judaeo-German<br />
(or Judendeutsch), <strong>the</strong>y have largely hi<strong>the</strong>rto defied attempts to prise open <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
meaning (<strong>of</strong> this I shall say more). The Hebrew script when deciphered reveals not<br />
Hebrew words but German beneath. In itself <strong>the</strong>n, a knowledge <strong>of</strong> Hebrew script<br />
and German, might, one would have thought, have opened <strong>the</strong>m up. Added to <strong>the</strong>se