Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild,^[2] GCVO, PC (8 November 1840 – 31 March 1915) was a British banker and politician from the wealthy international Rothschild family.

Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, who was known as "Natty," was the eldest son of Austrian Baron Lionel de Rothschild (1808–1879) and Baroness Charlotte von Rothschild (née von Rothschild). Both if his parents were Jewish.

His paternal grandparents were Freiherr (or Baron) Nathan Mayer Rothschild, after whom he was named, and Hannah (née Barent-Cohen) Rothschild, the daughter of Levy Barent Cohen. His maternal grandparents were Freiherr Carl Mayer von Rothschild (1788–1855) and Adelheid Herz (1800–1853). Through both of his grandfathers, who were brothers, he was the great-grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), founder of the dynasty.

In his youth, Rothschild was a Captain in the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry.^[3] Rothschild was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,^[4] where he was a friend of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), but left without taking a degree.

Rothschild worked as a partner in the London branch of the family bank, N M Rothschild & Sons, and became head of the bank after his father's death in 1879. During his tenure, he also maintained its pre-eminent position in private venture finance and in issuing loans to the governments of the US, Russia and Austria. Following the Rothschilds' funding of the Suez Canal, a close relationship was maintained with Benjamin Disraeli and affairs in Egypt.

Rothschild also funded Cecil Rhodes in the development of the British South Africa Company and the De Beers diamond conglomerate. He later administered Rhodes' estate after Rhodes' death in 1902 and helped to set up the Rhodes Scholarship scheme at the University of Oxford. He was a prominent member of the Round Table movement, created in 1909.

A noted philanthropist, Rothschild was heavily involved with the foundation of the Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company, a model dwellings company whose aim was to provide decent housing, predominantly for the Jews of Spitalfields and Whitechapel.^[5] He also served as a trustee of the London Mosque Fund until his death.^[6] From 1889 until his death, he was Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and was well known as an agriculturist.^[7]

In the 1902 Coronation Honours list,^[8] he was appointed a Privy Counsellor and was sworn a member of the council at Buckingham Palace on 11 August 1902.^[9] On the same day, he was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Knight Grand Cross (GCVO).^[10][11]

From 1865 to 1885, Rothschild sat in the House of Commons as Liberal Member of Parliament for Aylesbury. He was elected at least four times before he was permitted to sit in the Commons. As a religious Jew, he was unable to enter public life. Benjamin Disraeli stood for equality for Jews before the law and, when asked to vote the Public Worship Bill, he rejected Tory Protectionism. When Rothschild finally entered the chamber, he moved to the Conservative benches to shake his opponent by the hand. One of the most important consequences for the emancipation of the Jews was that these freedoms were written into the Second Reform Act.

In 1847, his uncle Anthony Nathan de Rothschild (1810–1876) was created 1st Baronet de Rothschild, of Tring Park. Since Sir Anthony had no male heirs, the baronetcy passed on his death to his nephew Nathan Mayer Rothschild.

In 1885, Rothschild became a member of the House of Lords when he was created Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertford, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.^[12] He also was Baron de Rothschild (Freiherr von Rothschild) in the Austrian Empire, a noble title he had inherited via his father. In 1838, Queen Victoria had authorized the use of this Austrian title in the United Kingdom.^[2]

When he was raised to the peerage by Gladstone,^[7] Rothschild was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords not to have previously converted to Christianity. (Disraeli had been created Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, but was baptised into Anglicanism at age twelve).

In common with the rest of his family, Rothschild joined the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party, formed in 1886 by Joseph Chamberlain, which ultimately merged into the Conservative Party.^[13]

In 1909, he was famously derided by then Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, over his opposition to the People's Budget, when the latter said, at a meeting at the Holborn Restaurant on 24 June that year: "I really think we are having too much Lord Rothschild. Are we to have all ways of reform, financial and social, blocked, simply by a notice-board; 'No Thoroughfare. By Order of Nathaniel Rothschild'?"^[14] Rothschild recommended the Lords reject the Parliament Bill, which was, however, passed.^[15]

In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Rothschild was consulted for economic advice by Lloyd George. At his first invitation to confer at the Treasury, when asked what could be done to raise more money for the war effort, Rothschild reportedly answered: "Tax the rich, and tax them heavily."^[16]

On 16 April 1867, he married Emma Louise von Rothschild (1844–1935), a cousin from the Rothschild banking family of Germany in Frankfurt.^[17] They had three children:

He died in London, five days after an operation, on 31 March 1915 and was buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery.^[19] Following his death, the peerage was inherited by his son, Lionel Walter Rothschild.