Lionel de Rothschild's father, Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777-1836), had left his father's developing business in Frankfurt and arrived in Manchester in 1799 His purpose was to buy cloth, at that time being manufactured more cheaply there than anywhere else in Europe, and send it back to mainland Europe for sale.

In 1806, Nathan married Hannah Cohen, the daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, a wealthy London Jewish merchant, and sister-in-law of Moses Montefiore. The marriage put him in at the heart of the capital's Jewish aristocracy.

Operating increasingly out of London, more as a banker than as a merchant, Nathan Rothschild settled, in 1809, at New Court in St Swithin's Lane in the City, which became - and remains to this day - the office of the bank which bears his name.

Within a few years he was heavily involved in financing Wellington's army in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. In this and in other business, he was working increasingly effectively with his brothers. By the early 1820s they had, between them, created an international banking network, with bases in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna and Naples.

Nathan was passionate in his concern for Jewish issues and for minority rights in general. He was a significant benefactor of the Jews Free School and worked with his brother-in-law Moses Montefiore to set up, in 1824, the Alliance Assurance Company. This was the first company to break the monopoly of Lloyds - which had refused to employ Jews as actuaries, claiming that they had a particular fondness for arson!

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