Lionel Nathan de Rothschild

Amschel Mayer von Rothschild was the eldest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and head of the family's original Frankfurt bank, M. A. Rothschild und Soehne. Born in Frankfurt in 1773, he took over the house on his father's death in 1812 and ran it for more than four decades, acting as treasurer to the German Confederation and, with his brothers, as a creditor to most of the German states. Ennobled by the Austrian emperor in 1822, he was a strictly observant Jew and a persistent advocate for the civil rights of the Frankfurt community, which made him the first Jew granted the freedom of the city. His marriage to Eva Hanau produced no children, so the Frankfurt house passed to his Naples nephews.

Salomon Mayer von Rothschild founded the Vienna house of the family, S. M. von Rothschild. Born in Frankfurt in 1774, the second son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, he settled in Austria in the 1820s and became the indispensable banker of Prince Metternich's state, financing government loans, helping to establish the Creditanstalt and building Austria's first long distance railway, the Kaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn. He also bought the Vitkovice ironworks in Moravia, which remained a family asset for a century. Created a baron in 1822, he was the father of Anselm von Rothschild, who succeeded him in Vienna, and of Betty, who married her uncle James in Paris. He died in Vienna in 1855.

Carl Mayer von Rothschild established the family's Naples house, C. M. de Rothschild e figli. Born in Frankfurt in 1788, the fourth son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, he was sent south in 1821 to manage a loan to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and stayed to run the Italian business, lending to Naples, Sardinia, Tuscany and the Papal States and being received by Pope Gregory XVI in 1832. He married Adelheid Herz of Frankfurt. His daughter Charlotte married her London cousin Lionel, and his sons Mayer Carl and Wilhelm Carl took over the Frankfurt bank after their uncle Amschel Mayer died childless. He died in Naples in 1855.

James Mayer de Rothschild, born Jakob in Frankfurt in 1792, was the youngest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and the founder of the Paris house, de Rothschild Freres. He arrived in France in 1811 and became the dominant private banker of the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, lending to successive French governments, building the Chemin de Fer du Nord railway and buying Chateau Lafite in 1868. He married his niece Betty, daughter of his brother Salomon of Vienna, and their household in the rue Laffitte and at the Chateau de Ferrieres was a centre of Parisian cultural life. Their sons Alphonse, Gustave and Edmond carried on the French bank. He died in Paris in 1868, the last of the five brothers.

Anselm Salomon von Rothschild was the only son of Salomon Mayer von Rothschild and the second head of the Vienna house. Born in Frankfurt in 1803, he trained in his uncles' banks and represented the family in Frankfurt for years before taking over in Vienna on his father's death in 1855, the year he helped found the Creditanstalt, which became the largest bank in Austria-Hungary. He sat in the Austrian upper house and was a notable collector of arms, armour and Renaissance objects. He married his first cousin Charlotte, daughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild of London; their children included Ferdinand and Alice of Waddesdon Manor, Albert who succeeded him in Vienna, and the composer Mathilde.

Betty de Rothschild was the hostess of the Paris branch at the height of its influence. Born in Frankfurt in 1805, the daughter of Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna, she married her uncle James Mayer de Rothschild in 1824 and presided over his house in the rue Laffitte and the Chateau de Ferrieres, where her salon drew Rossini, Chopin, Balzac and Heinrich Heine, who dedicated verse to her. Ingres painted her celebrated portrait in a red gown, completed in 1848. She was the mother of Alphonse, Gustave, Salomon James and Edmond de Rothschild, and after her husband's death in 1868 she remained the senior figure of the French family until she died in Paris in 1886.

Gustave de Rothschild was a partner in the Paris house of de Rothschild Freres, which he ran jointly with his elder brother Alphonse after their father James died in 1868. Born in Paris in 1829, he handled much of the bank's business in Italy and Spain and served for many years as president of the central consistory of French Jews, the community's governing body, as well as supporting Jewish schools and relief work. He married Cecile Anspach and built the mansion on the avenue de Marigny in Paris that remained in the family for generations. His descendants continued in the bank and at Chateau Lafite in Bordeaux. He died in 1911.

Baron Albert Salomon von Rothschild was the third head of the Vienna house, succeeding his father Anselm in 1874. Born in Vienna in 1844, he ran S. M. von Rothschild as the dominant private bank of Austria-Hungary, financed the Nordbahn railway and the Vitkovice ironworks, and became one of the wealthiest men in the empire. He was a serious amateur astronomer and photographer who paid for an observatory on the Kahlenberg above Vienna, and a steady patron of the city's charities. He married his Paris cousin Bettina, daughter of Alphonse de Rothschild, and was the father of Louis Nathaniel, the last head of the Vienna bank. He died in 1911.

Edmond James de Rothschild, the youngest son of James Mayer de Rothschild, was the family's great patron of Jewish settlement in Palestine. Born in Paris in 1845, he was a partner in de Rothschild Freres and a serious collector of prints and drawings, the bulk of which he left to the Louvre. From 1882 he bought land and funded agricultural colonies in Ottoman Palestine, backing Rishon LeZion, Zikhron Yaakov and dozens of other settlements and establishing the winery at Rishon LeZion that still operates. He married his Frankfurt cousin Adelheid, daughter of Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild, and was the father of James Armand and Maurice de Rothschild. He died in 1934.

Dame Miriam Rothschild was a naturalist of international standing who never attended university. Born in 1908, the eldest child of Charles Rothschild and Rozsika, she continued her father's work on fleas, publishing the six volume catalogue of the Rothschild flea collection and showing how the flea's jump is powered, and she worked on butterflies, parasites and the chemical defences of insects. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1985. A campaigner for wildflower meadows and for conservation, she lived at Ashton Wold in Northamptonshire, married George Lane in 1943, and died in 2005.

Baron Guy de Rothschild rebuilt the French house after the Second World War. Born in Paris in 1909, the son of Edouard de Rothschild, he was decorated for his service with the French army in 1940, escaped to London to join the Free French, and returned to find the bank seized and the family's property looted. He led de Rothschild Freres from 1949, modernised it, and developed the Le Nickel mining company and the Imetal group, before the bank was nationalised by the Mitterrand government in 1981 and the family had to start again. A leading owner of racehorses and master of the Chateau de Ferrieres, he died in Paris in 2007.