Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild
Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (
February 8,
1868 –
August 27 1937) was a
British banker and
zoologist from the international
Rothschild financial dynasty.
Educated at
Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1889 to 1908 he worked for the family firm of
NM Rothschild and Sons, in
London, though his greatest passion was
zoology, particularly the collecting and taxonomy of birds and butterflies. He participated in, and funded, expeditions across the world to gather specimens, and wrote numerous scientific papers.
Near his country home at
Tring Park in
Hertfordshire he established his own private zoological museum in the town of
Tring, which he opened to the public from 1892. In 1932 he was forced to sell his vast bird collection to the
American Museum of Natural History, partly because of financial needs arising due to blackmail by an unknown woman. His collection was one of the world's largest natural history collections, and in 1936 he gifted the rest of the collection to the Trustees of the British Museum. The
Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum at Tring is now a division of the
Natural History Museum.
Walter Rothschild was a
Liberal and Liberal Unionist
Member of Parliament for
Aylesbury from 1899 to 1910. A notable eccentric, he kept
kangaroos in his garden and harnessed a team of
zebras to pull his carriage. He also owned many
dogs, who dined with him at meals.
As an active
Zionist and close friend of
Chaim Weizmann he worked to formulate the draft declaration for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. On
2 November 1917 a letter from
Arthur Balfour, addressed to "Dear Lord Rothschild" at his London home in 148 Piccadilly, set out the
Balfour Declaration, which committed the British Government to supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The British effectively promised the land of Palestine to two different peoples - for different reasons. They needed the Arabs to revolt against the Turkish, while they also needed to persuade the Americans, through Jewish interest, to join the war in Europe.
Walter inherited the peerage from his father
Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild in 1915. He had no children, and his younger brother
Charles Rothschild had predeceased him, so the title was inherited by his nephew (Nathaniel Mayer)
Victor Rothschild.
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Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777–1836)
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Moses Haim Montefiore (1784–1885) (Married daughter of
Mayer Amschel Rothschild the original family patriarch)
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Baron Mayer de Rothschild (1818–1874)
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Lionel de Rothschild (1808–1879)
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Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild (1840–1915)
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Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery (1851–1890) (Daughter of Baron Mayer de Rothschild)
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Charles Rothschild (1877–1923)
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Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (1868–1937)
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Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild (1910–1990)
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Miriam Rothschild (1908–2005)
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Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild (b. 1936)
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Miriam Rothschild.
Dear Lord Rothschild. (Hutchinson, 1983) ISBN 0091537401
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History of the Jews in England*
Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum
