The Banker from Baiersdorf
Biography
Isaac Seligman (1834-1928)
Summary
Youngest of eight brothers
Isaac Seligman (2 December 1834 – 9 April 1928) was a
German-American merchant banker and philanthropist. He was the youngest of eight
brothers, all of whom
emigrated to America and became involved in running various branch offices of the merchant
banking house J. & W. Seligman Co., co-founded in Manhattan, New York City
in 1846 by Isaac's elder brothers, James and Joseph
Seligman.
Bavaria
He was born Isaak
Seligmann in Baiersdorf, Erlangen-Hochstadt, Bayern, Germany (Bavaria), to
David Isaak Seligman and Fanny Steinhardt. He later changed his name to Isaac, and in August
1857, at the age of 23, Seligman joined his entrepreneurial brothers in the United
States.
Merchant banking
empire
Seligman went on to run
Seligman Brothers, the London branch of the Seligman merchant-banking empire
with his brother Leopold. He married 18-year-old Lina Messel (b. Darmstadt 1851) in London in
1869. Between 1869 and 1886, Lena bore him three daughters and four sons, the eldest son being
Charles David Seligman.
Philanthropist
Seligman was also a fundraiser for,
benefactor to, and activist in, a large number of charitable and political organisations
including the American Society in London, the Anglo-Jewish
Association (lobbying against oppression of Serbian Jews), the German
Association (raising funds for those wounded or made destitute by the Franco-Prussian
War), the Mansion House Committee (raising funds for distressed Jews in
Russia), the Eighty Club in London (social and political), and the
Jew's Deaf and Dumb Home (lip-reading for deaf and dumb), originally founded by
Baroness M. de Rothschild, of which home Seligman was the treasurer in
1875.
Zimapan
In 1896, Seligman was appointed
joint legal owner and trustee of the 'Tregullow Offices' (later Zimapan Villa), a
former Cornish mine office belonging to the Williams mining-mogul family of Scorrier, Cornwall,
by Charles Augustus Vansittart Conybeare, barrister-at-law and MP for Camborne,
Cornwall (1885-1895). Seligman was released from his trusteeship in 1902 when Charles Conybeare
and his wife Florence sold the property, which originally formed part of a marriage settlement,
to mining engineer Charles Rule Williams.
London's billionaire row
In 1899, Seligman bought 17
Kensington Palace Gardens, London, a grand mansion built in the north Italian villa
style, near Arthur Strauss MP (Charles Conybeare's parliamentary successor),
who lived down at the end of the tree-lined boulevard at No. 1 Kensington Palace Gardens. At
that time, Seligman's principal home, now part of London's billionaire's row, had at least four
reception rooms and 13 bedrooms.
Seligman died a wealthy man in 1928 at
the age of 93, leaving a fortune in his will valued at more than ₤18 million in today's
money.
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Note 1. The
above biographical summary was created for Wikipedia on 12 Nov 2010 by the author.
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