The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-01-08 00:00:00

SIR ANTHONY ROTHSCHILD.
(From The Times, Wednesday, Jan. 5.)

A far larger circle than can easily be defined will
hear with the greatest regret of the death of Sir
Anthony Rothschild. After an illness of many months,
and which latterly afforded no hopes of ultimate re-
covery, he died on Monday night at his temporary
residence in the vicinity of Southampton. Lady
Rothschild and his daughters were with him at his
death. The late Sir Anthony, who was one of the
leading partners in the house of N. M. Rothschild
and Sons, was the second son of Baron Nathan
Meyer de Rothschild by his wife Hannah, third
daughter of Mr. Levi Barnet Cohen, and was in
his 66th year, having been born in May, 1810,
He married in March, 1840, Louisa, daughter of
the late Mr. Abraham Monteficre, by whom he had
issue two daughters, Constance and Annie, the latter
married in 1873 to the Hon. Eliot Constantine Yorke,
son of the late Lord Hardwicke. Sir Anthony was
created a baronet of the 'United Kingdom in 1846,
with special remainder, failing his own male issue, to
the sons of his elder brother, Baron Lionel de Roths-
child; consequently Mr. Nathaniel M. de Rothschild,
M.P. for Aylesbury, succeeds to the baronetcy. Sir
Anthony, who was a Baronjof the Austrian Empire,
had been Austrian Consul-General in London since
1858, and was a Commissioner of Lieutenancy for
London.

Sir Anthony Rothschild's life was not eventful;
and be was less known, probably, to the public than
either of his two brothers. He was a steady man ot
business, and a quiet country gentleman; but in thlt
comparatively reserved and retired sphere he silently
rendered public and private services of very great.
value. He abstained from attempting to enter the
House of Commons, from a sense that the important
share he took in the business of his firm would not
enable him to spare sufficient time for Parliamentary
duties. This left him, however, more leisure for the
ordinary offices of friendship and charity, and he ful-
filled:these with genial and unlimited liberality. He was
distingnished, even among his family, in all matters of
business, for practical sense and sagacity; and in the
admmistration of his great estates he combined these
qualities with a generosity and kindliness of feeling
not always associated with them. His splendid house
at Aston Clinton, in Buckinghamshire, was the con-
stant scene of a hospitality which embraced dis-
tinguished persons of all classes and professions, and
some of the most interesting society of the last 30 ysars
will always be associated with it. He and his family
were unwearying in beneficence to the poor of the
neighbourhood and always worked in cordial sym-
pathy with the charitable labours of the clergy
of the surrounding Tillages. But he preferred
to exert this charity in the wholedome way of encourag-
ing labour and finding work for the industrious. Some-
times, indeed, he would find men work in the hope of
making them industrious. On one occasion, as he
was walking through his preserves, he observed a boy
trespassing in them. He caught him and asked whether
the boy'd father was not, as he suspected, at hand.
man was in the preserve, and received a severe caution
when he was found. But Sir Anthony immediately
afterwards turned to his keeper, and told him
the best way to keep people from poaching was to
make them contented and give them something to do,
and that he had better, therefore, find the Man work
on the farm. Whatever the weather, and whatever
the demand for labour, it was his rule to keep all his
labourers at work during the winter. The cottages
and other buildings on his estate were models; and
he was the best of landlords.

Thell

He has, however, still stronger claims to be realinisi
tiered by members of his own communion. He took
by far the most important part in the management of
the !great Jews' School in Spitalfields, of which he
was President. The Jews have a great capacity for
managing ingtitutions of this kind satisfactorily. l'hey
have, for instance, a kind of voluntary Poor Law among
themselves, and they succeed, without extravagance,
in supplying very largely for their own body the
place of ordinary parish relief. The school is. worthy
of their general reputation for powers of organization ;
and Sir Anthony was unwearied both in his efforts for
its good management and in the liberality with which
he supported it. His nominal contributions, large
as they were, were probably not the largest part of
the whole. He was always ready to bring forward
by liberal assistance any boy who showed capacity
and promise; and many a young man has thus
had his career in life made for him by the private
and unpretending generosity of Sir Anthony Roth-
Seconded in all gracious offices by his wife,
in short, a very rare example of great
administered by a steady combination of
benevolence, judgment, and that genial disposition
without which benevolence loses more than half its
charm. He has not made a great name, but he has
left a memory which will be gratefully preserved for
years in the hearts of an immense circle of friends and
dependents.

Schild.