526 Nathan Rothschild

Constituency : Aylesbury  1865-85

In  the  south  east  there  was  a  lot  of  movement  with  19  seats  changing  parties  and  the  Liberals finishing  one  up  on  their  rivals.

There  wasn't  a  contest  at  Aylesbury  where  Nathan  had  a  pact  with  the  local  Tories  to  the  displeasure  of  some  local  Liberals  particularly  his  rival  for  the  nomination  Frederick  Calvert  who  was  less  forthright  about  opposing  church  rates. He  replaced  Sir  Thomas  Bernard.

Nathan  was  the  son  of  Lionel, MP  for  the  City  of  London. He  was  educated  at  Cambridge  where  he  became  friendly  with  the  future  Edward VII. He  became  a  partner  in  the  London  branch  of  the  family  bank. He  was  a   philanthropist  who  founded  the  Four  Per  Cent  Industrial  Dwellings  Company  to  improve  housing  for  the  Jews  of  Spitalfields  and  Whitechapel. He  was  also  ironically  a  trustee  of  the  London  Mosque  Fund.

Nathan  was  involved  in  the  financing  of  the  Suez  Canal  which  brought  him  closer  to  Disraeli  at  a  time  when  he  was  losing  confidence  in  Gladstone. over  the  Turkish  question. In  1876  he  became  a  baronet  on  the  death  of  his  uncle.

Gladstone  made  Nathan  a  peer  in  1885  when  Aylesbury  was  reduced  to  just  one  member. He  was  the  first  unconverted  Jew  to  sit  in  the  Lords. It  has  been  interpreted  as  a  reward  for  his  help  in  stabilising  Egyptian  finances  for  the  government. In  1886  he  went  with  the  rest  of  his  family  into  the  Liberal  Unionists.

Nathan  helped  Cecil  Rhodes  in  developing  the  British  South  Africa  Company  and  the  de  Beers  diamond  mining  venture  and  was  a  trustee  of  his  estate  after  1902. He  set  up  the  Rhodes  Scholarship  scheme  at  Oxford. He  refused  loans  to  Russia  until  he  saw  some  evidence  of  a  lessening  of  persecution  of  the  Jews.

In  1909  Nathan  was  a  prominent  opponent ( in  his  only  Lords  speech ) of  the  People's  Budget  and  was  singled  out  by  Lloyd  George  for  derision  in  a  speech  at  Holborn. He  was  also  one  of  the  Die-hards  recommending  opposition  to  the  Parliament  Act. Despite  this  Lloyd  George  called  him  into  the  Treasury  for  advice  on  the  outbreak  of  World  War  One  and  was  told  "Tax  the  rich  and  tax  them  heavily".

He  died  the  following  year  after  an  operation  aged  74.