ABSTRACT
Introduction ‘There are three ways of losing your money: women, gambling and engineers. The first two are pleasanter, but the last is much more certain’, declared James de Rothschild.1 To the lasting regret of the archivists, this anecdote of Eric Hobsbawm cannot be attributed with certainty to Baron James (1792-1868), founder of the French branch of the Rothschild business. However The Rothschild Archive contains more than enough documentary evidence to support a study of every aspect of the family’s history and the purpose of this paper is to explore some of the sources that will be of use to railways historians. Business development The Rothschild family’s business began in the late eighteenth century, defined in a partnership agreement drawn up in 1810 by a Frankfurt merchant, Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) the principles of which would be renewed and reaffirmed by his five sons and their male descendants. His sons are represented in a motif of five arrows that permeates Rothschild history. Amschel (1773-1855), the eldest, continued to be associated with Frankfurt; Salomon (1774-1855) founded a branch of the business in Vienna; Nathan (1777-1836) was the first to leave Frankfurt, travelling to England to found N M Rothschild & Sons; Carl (1784-1855) was stationed in Naples and James (1792-1868) founded the family’s Paris branch.
