Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Mayer Amschel Rothschild was born in 1744 to an Ashkenazi Jewish family, in the Judengasse, the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), one of eight children of Amschel Moses Rothschild (died 1755) and his wife, Schönche Rothschild (née Lechnich; died 1756).

The ancestry of the Rothschilds is originated back to 1569 to Izaak Elchanan Rothschild (Isaac (Isaak) Elchanan Bacharach, zum Hahn), whose name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild (with the old spelling "th"), meaning "with the red shield", in reference to the house where the family lived for many generations (At the time, houses were designated by signs with different symbols or colors, not numbers). His grandchildren and descendants took this name as the family name and kept it when they relocated in 1664 to another house in the Judengasse—Hinterpfann ("[house in] the back of the saucepan") — which became the family's home and place of business through to the early 19th century.

Amschel's father had a business in the trade of goods and currency exchange. He was a personal supplier of coins to the Prince of Hesse. The family home above the shop had a front wall 11 feet (3.4 m) wide, where more than 30 people lived at that time.

With the help of relatives, Rothschild secured an apprenticeship under Jacob Wolf Oppenheimer at the banking firm of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer in Hanover in 1757. The grandson of Samuel Oppenheimer taught Rothschild useful knowledge in foreign trade and currency exchange, before he returned to his brothers' business in Frankfurt in 1763.

He became a dealer in rare coins and won the patronage of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse (who had also earlier patronised his father), gaining the title of "Court Factor" in 1769. Rothschild's coin business grew to include a number of princely patrons, and then expanded through the provision of banking services to Crown Prince Wilhelm, who became Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1785. Business expanded rapidly following the French Revolution when Rothschild handled payments from Britain for the hire of Hessian mercenaries.

By the early years of the 19th century, Rothschild had consolidated his position as principal international banker to Wilhelm IX and began to issue his own international loans, borrowing capital from the Landgrave.

In 1806, Napoleon invaded Germany in response to Wilhelm's support for Prussia. The Landgrave went into exile in the Duchy of Holstein, but Rothschild was able to continue as his banker, investing funds in London. He also profited from importing goods in circumvention of Napoleon's continental blockade.