Nathan Mayer Rothschild

Nathan Mayer Rothschild (16 September 1777 – 28 July 1836) was an English-German banker, businessman and financier. Born in Frankfurt am Main, he was the third of the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his wife, Guttle (née Schnapper). He was the founder of the English branch of the prominent Rothschild family. Early life, origins in Frankfurt Nathan Mayer Rothschild was born on 16 September 1777 to Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Guttle Schnapper in the Jewish ghetto area of Frankfurt in the Holy Roman Empire (in present-day Germany). He was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was the third son, and his brothers were Amschel Mayer Rothschild, Salomon Mayer Rothschild, Carl Mayer Rothschild and James Mayer Rothschild. All five brothers would go on to become close business partners spread out across Europe. They had five sisters, including Henriette Rothschild, who married Abraham Montefiore. Move to England and involvement in textile trade In 1798, at the age of 21, he settled in Manchester, England, and established a business in textile trading and finance. He later moved to London and began dealing on the London Stock Exchange from 1804. He made a fortune in trading bills of exchange through a banking enterprise begun in 1805, dealing with financial instruments such as foreign bills and government securities. Rothschild became a freemason of the Emulation Lodge, No. 12, of the Premier Grand Lodge of England on 24 October 1802, in London. Up until this point, the few Ashkenazi Jews who lived in England tended to belong to the "Antients" on account of their generally lower social class, while the more established Sephardim joined the Moderns.