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Baron Mayer de Rothschild (named Mayer Amschel Rothschild for his grandfather with that name) (1818 - 1874) was the third son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777 - 1836). Nathan and his brothers had been sent from Frankfurt to the capital cities of Europe in the early 19th century.
Life
Nathan Mayer Rothschild the third brother after a spell in Lancashire settled in London and founded the London branch of the bank. In 1816 the elder brothers were granted noble status (Freiherr or Baron) by the Emperor of Austria. They were now permitted to prefix the Rothschild name with 'von' or 'de'. The shield bearing four arrows, became five when in 1818 Nathan too was elevated. Nathan rather disliked the whole business of aristocratic titles, perhaps living in England he felt a foreign title set him apart.
However, while thoroughly anglicised in every way his son Mayer de Rothschild always styled himself Baron Mayer as was the custom on the continent for the younger sons of a nobleman. Which indeed he was.
It was Mayer's mother Hannah (nee Cohen) who began the Rothschildsettlement of Buckinghamshire, thinking her sons unhealthy she began to purchase parcels of land around Aylesbury in prime hunting country for them to exercise, thus by the second third of the 19th century all three of her sons had acquired large estates and mansions in the Vale of Aylesbury: Lionel at Tring; Anthony at Aston Clinton; and Mayer at Mentmore. Here he built Mentmore Towers The most sumptuous of the English Rothschild houses at the time. Other cousins were to follow later at Waddesdon, and Halton
In 1873 Baron Mayer bought 90 acres (360,000 m²) of land at Ascott two miles from Mentmore. This was given to his nephew Leopold de Rothschild who enlarged the existing Ascott House to the neo-Tudor extravaganza it is today.
family
Mayer de Rothschild and his wife Juliana (nee Cohen) had one child, a daughter, Hannah, later Countess of Rosebery. She was his sole heiress, and through her, Mentmore Towers passed to the Earl of Rosebery
Prominent English Rothschild family members
See also
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