Henry Oppenheim

Henry Oppenheim , actually Henri Maurice William Oppenheim (* 1835 in Frankfurt am Main , † May 4, 1912 in London ), was a banker from Germany.

Life

Henry Oppenheim was a son of the banker Simon Oppenheim and his wife Henriette, geb. Obermayer. In 1855 he spent a winter with his uncle in the Crimea . On April 16, 1868 he married Isabella Geogina Butler, with whom he had four sons and a daughter.

Egyptian villa, possibly Villa Oppenheim. Drawing by Diebitsch

Henry Oppenheim represented the Parisian banking house Oppenheim, Alberti, Pinto et Cie. in Egypt . He lived first in Alexandria , later in Cairo . There he temporarily owned the Villa Oppenheim on Schubrah-Allee, which was rebuilt and expanded by Carl von Diebitsch between 1862 and 1864 . Oppenheim, of Jewish origin, but converted to Christianity, and finally moved into the villa yourself. Instead, that was the harem of Halim Basa accommodated therein. According to Wilhelm Gentz , however, the oriental ladies had reservations about living in a house that had been in Christian hands.

Together with Frederick Greenwood of the Pall Mall Gazette , Oppenheim organized in 1875 the purchase of 176,602 shares in the Suez Canal , which were owned by the Egyptian state, by the English government. As early as 1873 Disraeli had therefore turned to Lionel de Rothschild , whereupon Nathan Mayer Rothschild was sent to Lesseps in Paris to make an offer to buy. Whether or not Oppenheim later acted independently of the Rothschilds is presented differently in different sources. In addition to the two versions, according to which either the Rothschild or Oppenheim bank took the initiative to buy the shares, there is also the theory that Ernest Cassel had a hand in it.

Wolfgang Schuller describes the processes as follows: Egypt was already heavily indebted in the 1870s and declared on October 7, 1875 that it could not service its debt in accordance with the contract. The Crédit Foncier proposed a final loan; the Suez Canal shares were to serve as security. But the Khedive Ismail Pascha wanted to borrow or sell these shares himself, which he had tried in vain in 1870. Initially, Edouard Dervieu was commissioned to sell the shares. He turned to various French banks, but all of them refused. Oppenheim, at that time already based in London, heard of Dervieu's efforts and decided to lobby for a purchase by the British government. He contacted the stock market journalist Greenwood, who in turn had ties to the Conservative Disraeli government. On November 14, 1875, Oppenheim agreed with Greenwood regarding bull market speculation; the next day Greenwood sought an interview with Lord Derby in the Foreign Office, who in turn informed Disraeli. The same day a dispatch was sent to the British Consul General in Egypt and ten days later the purchase was completed without the Bank of England or Parliament having been informed. Derby was initially not very enthusiastic about the project because he foresaw difficulties with Turkey and France , but Disraeli had immediately agreed.

On November 26, 1875, the trade was made public. What numerous bears had lost, could now be distributed as a profit by a few initiated in time. William Gladstone was outraged by Disraeli's actions.

Greenwood later presented the processes as if he had earned nothing from the transaction: “The whole thing happened be tween two Sundays. On the first Greenwood dined at Bruton street; on the second, calling on Lord Derby, he learned that the transaction had been successfully carried through, and was invited to say what form his personal recompense should take. He declined to specify a request, protesting that he had done nothing but his duty [...] In later years his friends heard him speak with natural bitterness of his generous avowal being taken literally, "it says in a newspaper report from 1912.

In his later years, Oppenheim lived in London. There he was one of the initiators of the construction of the subway along with Ernest Cassel. Cassel, Oppenheim and their partner Darius Ogden Mills received parliamentary approval on August 5, 1891, to run a subway line from Shepherd's Bush to the bank. The following year they were also given permission to extend the line to Liverpool Street . The railway was built from 1896. On June 27, 1900, the Central London Railway opened. From the beginning, the railway was equipped with an electric drive.

Oppenheim died in his Bruton Street residence in Mayfair .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Regelind Heimann: Wilhelm Gentz: (1822 - 1890); a protagonist of German oriental painting between realistic view and poetic narrative art; with a directory of oil paintings, sketches and studies . Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH, February 25, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8325-2590-3 , pp. 165 f.
2. ↑ In John Cooper: The Unexpected Story of Nathaniel Rothschild . Bloomsbury Publishing, July 16, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4729-1708-9 , pp. 34 f. it is stated that Oppenheim probably learned of the Rothschilds' efforts and persuaded Lionel Rothschild to take him on board.
3. ^ M. Kienholz: Opium Traders and Their Worlds-Volume Two: A Revisionist Exposé of the World's Greatest Opium Traders . iUniverse, October 13, 2008, ISBN 978-0-595-61326-7 , pp. 94-.
4. ↑ According to other information, for example in Stanley Weintraub: Charlotte and Lionel: A Rothschild Love Story . Simon and Schuster, January 1, 2003, ISBN 978-0-7432-2686-8 , pp. 259 f. , Disraeli was informed by Rothschild.
5. ^ Wolfgang Schuller: Corruption in Antiquity: Konstanz Symposium, October 1979 . Oldenbourg Verlag, 1982, ISBN 978-3-486-51161-1 , p. 259 ff.
6. ^ Frederick Greenwood , in: West Gippsland Gazette , March 19, 1912, p. 6
7. ↑ life data on gw.geneanet.org
8. ↑ Stephen Halliday: Underground To Everywhere: London's Underground Railway in the Life of the Capital . History Press Limited, January 31, 2013, ISBN 978-0-7524-9551-4 , pp. 73 ff.
9. ^ Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 60, 1912, p. 642