Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild

Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild , (born October 31, 1910 in England - † March 20, 1990 ) was a British biologist, political advisor, member of the House of Lords, secret service agent and member of the Rothschild dynasty of bankers.

Life

Victor Rothschild was the son of the banker, entomologist and conservationist Charles Rothschild and Rózsika Rothschild and brother of Miriam Rothschild and Pannonica de Koenigswarter . He attended Harrow School and from 1929 the University of Cambridge (Trinity College), where he studied zoology and received his doctorate in 1937 (Ph. D.). In 1935 he received a Prize Fellowship from Trinity College.

In Cambridge he excelled as a cricket player, was a member of the Cambridge Apostles secret society (dominated by Marxists at the time) and also retained his left-wing attitude when he inherited the nobility titles of his uncle Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild , and as a member of the Labor in 1937 Party moved into the House of Lords. Since he in Cambridge and later with the British secret contacts with Guy Burgess , Anthony Blunt (with whom he shared an interest in art) and Kim Philby had, he was later temporarily suspected Soviet spy ring, the fifth member of Cambridge Five to have been , but exonerated in the investigations when the spy ring was blown in 1964. Rumors persisted, so that in 1986 he was forced to plead his innocence in an open letter to British newspapers. Margaret Thatcher also exonerated him in 1986 (Thatcher: We have no evidence that he was ever a soviet agent ). In 1994 the Australian author Roland Perry suspected him in a book of having been the fifth man, who was later mostly identified with John Cairncross . Kim Philby suspected Rothschild, who later moved in high British intelligence circles and advised British governments on these issues, in his interviews with Phillip Knightley against having passed on documents about Soviet agents in Europe to the Mossad in 1947 .

During World War II, he worked for MI-5 as head of the Explosives and Sabotage department, fighting German sabotage attempts in Great Britain and also personally defusing German bombs and booby traps, for which he was considered an expert. He was also partially responsible for the safety of Winston Churchill , with whom he was friends. For his work in World War II he received the George Medal (GM) and high American awards in 1944 .

1950 to 1970 he was at the Faculty of Zoology at Cambridge University. But he also worked for industry. Among other things, he developed measuring methods for the motility and number of spermatozoa and various other measuring devices for biological research. For his work on fertilization (including in bulls and sea urchins) he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1953 . In 1950 he received another doctorate (D. Sc.). From 1961 he worked for the research of Royal Dutch Shell (as vice director for research), where he was director of global research from 1963 to 1970. 1948 to 1958 he was chairman of the Agricultural Research Council.

In 1975/76 he was chairman of the family bank of the Rothschilds ( NM Rothschild & Sons ) in an attempt to settle a family dispute in the management, which was unsuccessful. He remained active in the company until his death. In 1981 he founded Biotechnology Investments Limited.

He advised both Labor governments and conservatives (such as Margaret Thatcher ) on security issues. He had good contacts with Prime Minister Edward Heath and headed the Central Policy Review Staff (known as the Think Tank ) founded by Heath from 1971 to 1974 , which coordinated the work of the government beyond the borders of the authorities and was dissolved in 1983. In 1976 he headed the Royal Commission on Gambling and in 1982 chaired a commission that evaluated the work of the Social Science Research Council.

In 1975 he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).

Private

He was married twice. From his marriage to Barbara Hutchinson (* 1911), which he entered into in 1933, he had two daughters and a son ( Jacob Rothschild ). The marriage later ended in divorce. From his second marriage to Teresa Mayor (1915-1996) in 1946, he had two sons and two daughters, including Emma Rothschild and the businessman Amschel Mayor James Rothschild (1955-1996).

In addition to cricket, he later played golf. He also played the piano and had a penchant for jazz.

Fonts

• A classification of living animals, Longmans, Green and Co. 1961
• Spermatozoa, British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, Nos. 5307 and 5308, September 1962, pp. 743-749, pp. 812-817

literature

• Kenneth Rose: Elusive Rothschild. The Life of Victor, Third Baron. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2003.
• Suzanne Reeve: Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild, GBE, GM Third Baron Rothschild. October 31, 1910-20 March 1990, Biographical Memoirs Fellows Royal Society, Volume 39, 1994.
• Kenneth Rose: Rothschild, (Nathaniel Mayer) Victor, third Baron Rothschild (1910–1990). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004.

Web links

• Biography in the Rothschild archive, with list of publications and family tree

References and comments

1. ↑ David Leitch, Rothschild spied as fifth man , The Independent, October 23, 1994
2. ↑ Roland Perry The fifth man , Pan Books 1994, who referred to statements made by former KGB officers in interviews in Moscow in 1993, including the agent leader of the Cambridge Five Yuri Ivanovich Modin, which he revoked soon after. David Leitch, Rothschild spied as fifth man , The Independent, October 23, 1994 (on Perry's book)
3. ↑ Leitch, The Independent 1994, loc. cit.
4. ^ Rothschild archive, see web links

predecessor	Office	successor
Walter Rothschild	Baron Rothschild 1937–1990	Jacob Rothschild