Mayer Amschel Rothschild
| Mayer Amschel Rothschild | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Meyer Amschel Rothschild 23 February 1744 Free Imperial City of Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 19 September 1812 (aged 68) Frankfurt, Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, Confederation of the Rhine |
| Known for | Rothschild banking dynasty |
| Spouse(s) | Guttle Schnapper (m. 1770–1812) |
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Mayer Amschel Rothschild, written also Anschel (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812), was a German Jewish banker and the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Referred to as the "founding father of international finance," Rothschild was ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of "The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of All Time" in 2005.
Meyer Amschel Rothschild was born in 1744 in the Judengasse, the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt am Main, Holy Roman Empire, one of eight children of Amschel Moses Rothschild (d. 1755) and his wife Schönche Rothschild (née Lechnich, d. 1756).
The ancestry of the Rothschilds can be traced back to 1577 to Izaak Elchanan Rothschild (Isaac (Isaak) Elchanan Bacharach, zum Hahn), whose name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild (with the old spelling "th"), meaning "with the red sign", in reference to the house where the family lived for many generations. (At the time, houses were designated by signs with different symbols or colors, not numbers.) His grandchildren and descendants took this name as the family name and kept it when they relocated in 1664 to another house in the Judengasse—Hinterpfann ("house in the back of the saucepan")—which became the family's home and business location through to the early 19th century.
Amschel's father had a business in goods-trading and currency exchange. He was a personal supplier of coins to the Prince of Hesse. The family home above the shop had a front wall only 11 feet (3.4 m) wide, where more than 30 people lived at that time.
With the help of relatives, Rothschild secured an apprenticeship under Jacob Wolf Oppenheimer, at the banking firm of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer in Hanover, in 1757. The grandson of Samuel Oppenheimer taught Rothschild useful knowledge in foreign trade and currency exchange, before he returned to his brothers' business in Frankfurt in 1763. He became a dealer in rare coins and won the patronage of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse (who had also earlier patronised his father), gaining the title of "Court Factor" in 1769. Rothschild's coin business grew to include a number of princely patrons, and then expanded through the provision of banking services to Crown Prince Wilhelm, who became Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1785. Business expanded rapidly following the French Revolution when Rothschild handled payments from Britain for the hire of Hessian mercenaries.
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