Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild

Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild ( born February 8, 1868 in London, † August 27 1937 in Tring, Hertfordshire ) was a British banker and zoologist from the international Rothschild financial dynasty.

Studies and Zoology

After completing his studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he worked from 1889 to 1908 for the investment bank NM Rothschild & Sons family in London. An idea for Albert Günther led to a lifelong interest in zoology, in particular the collection and taxonomy of birds and butterflies. He financed and participated in expeditions all over the world where he collected many specimens hitherto undescribed bird and butterfly species and described in research papers.

Near his country house in Tring Park in Hertfordshire, he founded his private Zoological Museum in Tring, which was opened to the public in 1892.

In 1932 he sold because of its high financial needs his enormous collection of birds at the American Museum of Natural History.

His collection was one of the largest natural history collections in the world; In 1936 he inherited the rest of the collection to the Trustees of the British Museum. The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring is now a department of the Natural History Museum.

Rothschild was a member of the Liberal Party and the Liberal Unionists and member of the British Parliament for Aylesbury 1899-1910. Kangaroos He held in his garden and harnessed a group of zebras, who moved his carriage. He also had several dogs that were allowed to sit at his meals at his table.

Zionism and the Balfour Declaration

As an active Zionist and close friend of Chaim Weizmann Rothschild worked on the formulation of a founding statement for a national home of the Jews in Palestine. On November 2, 1917, the then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter with the salutation "Dear Lord Rothschild ", addressed to Rothschild's London house in 148 Piccadilly, where he was drafting the Balfour Declaration. Herein, the British government declared agreed to support the Zionist efforts to establish a " national homeland " of the Jews in Palestine.

Peerage

Rothschild inherited the peerage in 1915 by his father Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild ( 1840-1915 ). He had no children and his younger brother died before him, so that at his death the barony to his nephew ( Nathaniel Mayer) Victor Rothschild went.

Works (selection)

  • Lionel Walter Rothschild ( 1898): Rough notes on the birds of the Bass Rock and Neighbouring shores.
  • Lionel Walter Rothschild ( 1907): Extinct Birds
  • Lionel Walter Rothschild, Ernst Hartert: List of the collections of birds made ​​by Albert S. Meek in the lower ranges of the Snow Mountains, on the River islands, and on Mount Goliath falling on the years 1910 and 1911. Novitates Zoologicae. Tring 20.1913, 473-527. ISSN 0950-7655 ( Notes on Lepidoptera collected by Albert S. Meek in Irian Jaya falling on 1910 and 1911, including descriptions of localitie )
  • Walter Rothschild: The avifauna of Laysan and the Neighbouring islands with a complete history to date of the birds of the Hawaiian possession.RH Porter, London 1893-1900.
  • Lionel Walter Rothschild, Ernst Hartert: The birds of the Admiralty Islands, north of New Guinea in German: Novitates Zoologicae. 21.1914, pp. 281-298, see also the online editions of the Novitates Zoologicae
Genealogy of the Rothschild family Liberal Party (UK) Liberal Unionist Party Extinct Birds (Rothschild book) Integrated Authority File
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