Rothschild worked as a partner in the London branch of the family bank,
N M Rothschild & Sons, and became head of the bank after his father's death in 1879. During his tenure, he also maintained its pre-eminent position in private venture finance and in issuing loans to the governments of the US, Russia and Austria. Following the Rothschilds' funding of the
Suez Canal, a close relationship was maintained with
Benjamin Disraeli and affairs in
Egypt. Rothschild also funded
Cecil Rhodes in the development of the
British South Africa Company and the
De Beers diamond conglomerate. He later administered Rhodes' estate after Rhodes' death in 1902 and helped to set up the
Rhodes Scholarship scheme at the
University of Oxford. He was a prominent member of the
Round Table movement, created in 1909. A noted philanthropist, Rothschild was heavily involved with the foundation of the
Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company, a
model dwellings company whose aim was to provide decent housing, predominantly for the Jews of
Spitalfields and
Whitechapel. He also served as a trustee of the
London Mosque Fund until his death. From 1889 until his death, he was
Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and was well known as an
agriculturist. he was appointed a
Privy Counsellor and was sworn a member of the council at
Buckingham Palace on 11 August 1902. On the same day, he was appointed to the
Royal Victorian Order as a Knight Grand Cross (GCVO).
House of Commons From 1865 to 1885, Nathan Rothschild sat in the House of Commons as
Liberal Member of Parliament for
Aylesbury. His father
Lionel had previously been elected for the
City of London from 1847 but had been
unable to take the obligatory oath until 1858; they were MPs together from 1865 to 1868 and from 1869 to 1874.
Baron Rothschild In 1847, his uncle
Anthony de Rothschild was created a
baronet in the
Baronetage of the United Kingdom. As Anthony had no male heirs, upon his death, the Rothschild baronetcy passed by special remainder to his nephew Nathan. In 1822, his father and uncles were granted the hereditary title of
Baron de Rothschild in the
Austrian nobility by Emperor
Francis I of Austria. In 1838,
Queen Victoria authorized his father and his male heirs to use this Austrian title within the United Kingdom. He inherited this Austrian noble title upon the death of his father in 1879. When he was raised to the peerage by
Gladstone, Rothschild was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords not to have previously converted to Christianity. (Disraeli had been created
Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, but he was baptised into Anglicanism at age twelve.) In common with the rest of his family, Rothschild joined the breakaway
Liberal Unionist Party, formed in 1886 by
Joseph Chamberlain, which ultimately merged into the
Conservative Party. In 1909, he was famously derided by
David Lloyd George, then
Chancellor of the Exchequer, over his opposition to the
People's Budget, when the latter said, at a meeting at the Holborn Restaurant on 24June that year: "I really think we are having too much Lord Rothschild. Are we to have all ways of reform, financial and social, blocked, simply by a notice-board; 'No Thoroughfare. By Order of Nathaniel Rothschild'?" Rothschild recommended the Lords reject the
Parliament Bill, which was, however, passed. In 1914, after the outbreak of
World War I, Rothschild was consulted for economic advice by Lloyd George. At his first invitation to confer at the Treasury, when asked what could be done to raise more money for the war effort, Rothschild reportedly answered: "Tax the rich, and tax them heavily." ==Personal life==